Optimize Your Efforts

Abstract

In industrial circles, academic research is frequently discussed as being disconnected from the real-world security problems and needs. Additionally, the critics highlight that academic research is largely driven by fashionable research topics/ideas and discourages bold innovative thinking. While admittedly this has been a relevant concern and pressing issue in the past, things are slowly changing. One can find more and more innovative and applied security research which makes it to the industrial conference stages and newspapers. Also, companies are closing Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA) with the academic research groups to work on the security needs of their products and software. This talk will discuss current trends in the cyber security research ecosystem as well as provide suggestions on how to select and formulate real-world applied research problems. Firstly, we will cover the recent changes observed in industrial and academic research. We will argue that industrial research is increasingly becoming more commercial and thus less publicly available, whereas academic research groups are increasingly tackling real-world research topics and attack surface. We then discuss how to select research topics that are relevant to industrial needs and simultaneously offer academic research component. We will also cover successful academic writing and industrial presentation styles.