Elena Sitnikova is Associate Professor of Cybersecurity and Networking, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University. A Certified Secure Software Lifecycle Professional, Elena leads cutting-edge research in Critical Infrastructure protection, focusing on intrusion detection for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems cybersecurity and the Industrial Internet of Things. With cyber-attacks increasing globally, she is exploring system antifragility and using artificial intelligence to analyse abnormal data that may affect critical cyber-physical systems.

Elena has successfully led research grants with a research income of over AU$1.5 million, has many cited publications and supervised six successful PhD completions.

She is an Associate Editor with the Australian Journal of Multidisciplinary Engineering and serves cyber discipline as Chair/Editor of conferences/journals . E.g. International Cyber Warfare, US-based Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education. Elena is Invited Keynote Speaker for many industry and government forums.

Elena is also an innovative university educator in cybersecurity, pioneering online student engagement and research-led teaching. She is a recognised expert in excellence in higher education, holding a UK-based Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and have received an Australian Office for Learning and Teaching Citation award for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

Elena is the elected national Academic Lead of the Australian Affiliate of the international network Women in Cyber Security (WiCyS).

• Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)
• Critical Infrastructure Protection and SCADA Control Systems Security
• Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) for cyber physical systems
• Industrial Internet of Things
• Software and Systems Engineering Process Improvement
• Quality in Software and Systems Engineering
• Engineering, ICT and Cybersecurity Education

Completed HDR students

2024: Ranji, Ramtin (PhD under re-examination) Secure trading of unlicensed spectrum in CPS (Joint, UNSW Canberra)

2023: Stewart, Harrison, PhD Strengthening Cybersecurity in Digital Transformation (Joint at Flinders)

2022: Hassan, Marwa, PhD Privacy-preservation for cyber-physical systems (UNSW) 

2021: Al-Hawawreh, Muna, PhD Targeted Ransomware intrusion detection for SCADA (Primary at UNSW).

Monks, Kimberley, MpH Intrusion Detection for SCADA systems cybersecurity (Primary at UniSA)

2020: Koroniotis, Nikolaos, Bot-IoT Forensics Framework (Primary UniSA) - recipient of the UNSW Dean’s award for outstanding PhD thesis

2012:  Virallikattur, Subramanian Dhenesh, Integrated Tool-Support for Small Team Meetings within Organisations (Primary at UniSA).

Watt, Allan Charles, Development of a Framework for the Investigation into the Methods Used for the Electronic Trafficking and Concealment of Child Abuse Material (Joint at UniSA).

Honours / Final year Engineering Project Completions

2023:  Sebastian Hoey, Honours thesis:  Analysing and Investigating Utility Residential Solar Inverter Remote Control to Propose an LV Feeder Monitoring Solution Designed to Improve Resilience, Flinders University.

2020: Dominic Hill - final year engineering project: Anomaly Detection during Normal Operation of SCADA Systems using Machine Learning techniques, UNSW Canberra

2019: Kim Offner – Final year health science project with Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney:  Towards understanding cybersecurity capability in Australian healthcare organisations: A systematic review of recent trends, threats. (Offner et al 2020, Q1, cv, p.8)

2017: Thomas Marsden – final year engineering project:  Probability Risk Identification Based Intrusion Detection System for SCADA Systems. (Marsden et al, cv, p.11) UNSW Canberra

2016: Punett Muddu – final year engineering project: Discovering Cyber Vulnerabilities in SCADA Control System via Examination of Water Treatment Plant in Laboratory Environment. UNSW Canberra

2015: Matthew Gaudie – Honours project:  Towards enhancing Australian army capabilities in cybersecurity training. Achieved 1st-Class Honours. UNSW Canberra

Current PhD and Professional Doctorate students

• Soldini, Tanisha, full-time, started in 2024 Developing possible strategies for secure communication between SCADA systems, real data generated in an interconnected world, and critical infrastructure. (Primary Flinders)
• Coull, Anne, part-time, started 2023 How Australian critical infrastructure organisations can predict and prevent potentially crippling cyber black swan situations. (Primary at Flinders)
• Saghaie, Babak, started 2023 Cybersecurity of cyber-physical systems (CPS) (Joint at Flinders)
• Stuart Fowler, part-time Cybersecurity Test & Evaluation within Australian Gov Dept (Joint, UNSW Canberra)
• Jessemyn Modini, part-time, The application of epidemiology to cyber security (Joint @UNSW Canberra)
• Mark Van Zomeren, part-time, Technical Assurance Models and Frameworks to Assure the Through-life Resilience of Cyber-capable Systems (Joint at UNSW Canberra)
• Ayodeji Oseni, Explainable AI (Joint at UNSW Canberra) – currently on leave.
• Andrew Noble, part-time, The Development of Cloud Access Security Brokers (Joint at UNSW Canberra)