Daniel W. Woods

Informatics Forum

10 Crichton St

Edinburgh

United Kingdom

I research the economics of cybersecurity and privacy. My PhD project focused on how the insurance industry shapes cybersecurity decisions. Since then I have looked into:

  • Cyber risk quantification
  • Out-sourced incident response
  • How the legal system impacts cybersecurity
  • Privacy preference signals
  • Information sharing
  • 0-Day exploit brokers and prices

I make time to share research findings via faculty seminars, guest lectures, policy briefings, and industry events.

In terms of formal credentials and roles, I am a Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics. My position is jointly appointed by the British University in Dubai, which means I periodically head out there to teach and collaborate. Looking further back, I completed my PhD at the University of Oxford, supervised by Andy Simpson. During the PhD, I visited the Security Economics Lab at the University of Tulsa on a Fulbright Scholar Award. I also did a postdoc at the University of Innsbruck in the Security and Privacy Lab.

news

Oct 17, 2022 Our paper titled “Lessons Lost: Incident Response in the Age of Cyber Insurance and Breach Attorneys” was accepted to USENIX Security.
Sep 18, 2022 Rachiyta Jain joined the PRINSUR project as a research associate.
Aug 21, 2022 I presented our paper titled “Characterising 0-Day Exploit Brokers” at the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security.
Jun 6, 2022 Lukas Walter and I presented our paper titled “Reviewing Estimates of Cybercrime Victimisation and Cyber Risk Likelihood” at the Workshop on Attackers and Cyber-Crime Operations.
May 30, 2022 I moved to Edinburgh.

selected publications

  1. Lessons Lost: Incident Response in the Age of Cyber Insurance and Breach Attorneys
    Woods, Daniel W., Böhme, Rainer, Wolff, Josephine, and Schwarcz, Daniel
    USENIX Security Symposium 2023
  2. SoK: Quantifying Cyber Risk
    Woods, Daniel W., and Böhme, Rainer
    IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2021
  3. The County Fair Cyber Loss Distribution: Drawing Inference from Insurance Prices
    Woods, Daniel W., Moore, Tyler, and Simpson, Andrew C.
    Digital Threats: Research and Practice 2021