Doctor Basel Halak | University of Southampton

About

Dr Basel Halak is Associate Professor of Secure Electronics at the University of Southampton, Director of the University's Cyber Security Academy, and Founder and Director of the Hampshire and Sussex Cyber Security Cluster, and serves as hardware-security technical lead in Southampton's EPSRC Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security. He is an internationally active researcher, engineering educator and academic leader whose work spans over two decades of contributions to secure electronics, computer architectures, hardware security and applied cryptography.

His research focuses on advancing the security, trustworthiness and resilience of next-generation computing systems, encompassing physically unclonable functions (PUFs), hardware roots of trust, semiconductor supply-chain security, secure AI accelerators, post-quantum cryptography, hardware attestation and fault-tolerant computing architectures. His work bridges fundamental research in microelectronics and digital systems design with practical security challenges in industrial, defence and space applications.

Dr Halak has published approximately 120 peer-reviewed research outputs and authored or edited seven specialist books. His publications include the first textbook dedicated to Physically Unclonable Functions (Springer, 2018) and the pioneering volume Hardware Supply Chain Security: Threat Modelling, Emerging Attacks and Countermeasures (Springer, 2021). His other books address VLSI implementation of MIMO detection, embedded-device authentication, machine learning for embedded-system security, and secure AI accelerators, including the 2026 volume Convolutional Neural Network Accelerators: From Basic Design Principles to Advanced Security Applications. These works contribute to the international dissemination of advanced engineering knowledge.

His research leadership has attracted substantial competitive funding and industrial collaboration. As a Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellow, he led two research programmes with Arm (2019–2022), investigating hardware supply-chain authentication and intelligent physical tamper detection. He subsequently secured £92,118 from the Alan Turing Institute (2024–2025) to investigate secure RISC-V-based AI accelerators and £619,333 from Dstl (2026) as Principal Investigator of OSCAR-FPGA, a programme developing certifiable, attestation-ready FPGA microprocessors. He has also contributed to UK Space Agency-funded research.

Beyond research, Dr Halak has established a strong record of academic leadership and international engagement. He leads Southampton's contribution to the European Master's in Embedded Computing Systems (EMECS), an international postgraduate programme involving leading European universities. He played a key role in securing the programme's €4.236 million Erasmus Mundus funding.

He has held international visiting academic appointments at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and Politecnico di Torino, and previously served as Visiting Professor at the Kazakh-British Technical University in 2017. His international activities include invited lectures and specialist tutorials at universities, industrial research organisations and international technical meetings, including Intel, Synopsys, the Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference, and NATO research workshops.

Dr Halak contributes actively to the international engineering research community. He has served as Chair of the IEEE International Verification and Security Workshop (IVSW), European Liaison for the IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), and a technical programme committee member for major conferences including HOST, DATE, DAC, ASP-DAC, ICCCA, ICCCS, MTV and EWME. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Access and has undertaken guest editorial responsibilities for IET Circuits, Devices & Systems and Micromachines. His professional activities have also included membership of the World Wide Web Consortium's Hardware Security Working Group and external examining responsibilities at UK and international universities.

His research has been undertaken in collaboration with major industrial and public-sector organisations, including Arm, Arqit, Schneider Electric, Ericsson, BAE Systems and Dstl. As Director of Southampton's Cyber Security Academy since 2021, he has led its industry engagement and professional education activities, securing £140,000 in industrial contracts during 2022–2026. In 2023, he founded the Hampshire and Sussex Cyber Security Cluster, strengthening collaboration between academia, businesses and government to support regional cybersecurity capability, skills development and innovation.

Dr Halak has supervised 15 PhD researchers and seven postdoctoral researchers to completion, contributing to the development of the next generation of engineering researchers. His achievements have been recognised through a Royal Academy of Engineering Industrial Fellowship, a National Teaching Fellowship (2020), Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy, and the University of Southampton Vice-Chancellor's Teaching Award (2016).

Through his research, international academic engagement, professional service and industrial leadership, Dr Halak continues to advance the development and practical adoption of secure and resilient computing technologies.

Visiting Academic Posts

Visiting Professor (Secure IoT Technologies) at the Kazakh-British Technical University (2016-2017).
Visiting Scholar (Hardware Security) Technical University of Kaiserslautern on Technical University of Kaiserslautern (2017-Now).
Visiting Scholar (Hardware Security) at the University of Turin, Italy on Cryptographic systems and algorithms (2023-Now).

Visiting Scholar (Hardware Security) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway (2022-Now).

International Conferences Organisation

Organising Committee Member (European Liaison) of IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), United
Chair of the IEEE International Verification and Security Workshop (IVSW).
Program Theme Chair of the 11th IEEE European workshops on Microelectronics
Technical Program Committee member IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST).
Technical Program Committee member IEEE Design, Automation and Test in Europe Conference (DATE)
Technical Program Committee member IEEE Design, Automation Conference (DAC).
Technical Program Committee member of Microprocessor/SoC Test and Verification Workshop, United States
Technical program committee member of the international Microelectronics Olympiad,
Technical Program Committee Member of the IEEE International Conferences on Computer and Computational Sciences,
Technical Program Committee Member of IEEE Asia and South Pacific Design Automation

Advisory Roles

External Examiner of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Manchester (2023-2027).
External Examiner of the Engineering Faculty at University of the West of England (2019-2022).
PhD Examiner in UK and international universities (e.g. Waterloo University, Canada, Newcastle University, UK).
Member of Synopsys Curricula Advisory Board, United States.
Member of the Hardware Security Working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Reviewer of numerous journals including IEEE Transections on Computers, IEEE Transactions on VLSI, IEEE Transection on Circuits and Systems TCAS I, IEEE Transections on VLSI, IEEE Transection on Circuits and Systems TCAS II, Microelectronics

Invited Talks

Invited Speaker Newcastle University, CMOS Aging Causes, Effects and Mitigations techniques, 2016.
Invited Speaker, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan Physically Unclonable Technologies for IoT Security Applications, 2017.
Invited Speaker, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, On the Personalities of Electronics Systems and their Security Applications, 2018.
Embedded Tutorial, IEEE International Verification and Security Workshop (IVSW), Spain, Physically Unclonable Functions: Design Principles, Applications and Outstanding Challenges, 2018.
Invited Speaker, Newcastle University, On the Hardware Security of Resources Constrained Systems, 2018.
Invited Seminar, Intel Corporation, United States, Hardware-Based security Solutions of the Internet of Things, 2018.
Invited Seminar, Intel Corporation, United States, Physically Unclonable Functions: Applications and Outstanding Challenges, 2018.
Invited Seminar, Queen University in Belfast, Hardware-Based security Solutions of the Internet of Things, 2018.
Invited Speaker, University of Liverpool, Hardware-Based security Solutions of the Internet of Things, 2018.
Invited Speaker, University of York, On the Hardware Security of Resources Constrained Systems, 2019.
Invited Speaker, The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), Securing Hardware Supply Chain with an Unforgeable Root of Trust, University of Sussex, 2020
Invited Speaker Hardware Supply Chain Security: Threats and Defences, Synopsys Armenia Educational Department, Armenia, March 2020.
Invited Speaker, Hardware-based Security Solutions for the Internet of Things, 25th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference, Beijing, China, 2020.
Invited Speaker Hardware Trojan Detection and Mitigation Techniques: Threats and Defences, Synopsys Armenia Educational Department, Armenia, March 2021.
Invited Speaker, Physically Unclonable Functions, Design Principles, and Outstanding Research Challenges. AVT-337 Research Workshop on Anti-tamper protective systems for NATO operations, November 2021.
Invited Speaker, Physically Unclonable Functions Armenia Educational Department, Armenia, March 2022.
Invited Speaker, Hardware Supply Chain Security Threat Analysis, and emerging countermeasures. Third-Party & Supply Chain Cyber Security, Summit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2022.
Invited Speaker, Hardware Supply Chain Security Risk Assessment and Defences Techniques. Supply Chain Risk and Resilience Forum - Berlin 2023.
Invited Speaker, Machine Learning For Hardware Security Armenia Educational Department, Armenia, March 2023
Invited Speaker, Chip Security: Why should we care? South West Cyber Cluster, United Kingdom, September, 2024

Public Engagement

Interview with Reuters on the hardware supply chain security, following pagers explosion incidents in the Middle East (2024). URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/analyst-on-how-a-detonator-could-theoretically-fit-in-a-pager/video/1452a2e893ee71a006f35460ce8427e0
Article on the Hidden threats in our electronic supply chain (2024). URL: https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-09-23/The-hidden-threats-in-our-electronic-supply-chain-1x7ZuS9CnJu/p.html
A blog on how to design secure electronics for space applications (2024). URL: https://www.port.ac.uk/news-events-and-blogs/how-do-we-ensure-the-security-of-space-applications
A blog by armComunity on hardware supply chain security (2022)
URL: https://community.arm.com/developer/research/b/articles/posts/addressing-the-hardware-supply-chain-security-challenge
A case study on my hardware Security Research , published by the Royal Academy of Engineering(2020). URL: https://raeng.org.uk/programmes-and-prizes/programmes/meet-the-researchers/dr-basel-halak
Radio interview on TBS eFM, Seoul, South Korea New Authentication Methods (2020) URL: http://www.podbbang.com/ch/10101
BBC Article on New Authentication Methods: Amazon One: Palm scanner launched for 'secure' payments (2020). URL: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54337984
Global Media coverage of the research findings of energy consumption of asymmetric crypto systems(2021-2023).

Editorship

Editor of Discovery Computing, Springer Nature
Associate Editor of IEEE Access
Editor of IET Circuit, Devices and System Special Issue on Microelectronics Education, United Kingdom.
Editor of MPDI Micromachines, Special Issue on Hardware Supply Chain.

Teaching

Teaching at the University of Southampton

Digital Design

I have extensive teaching experience of on digital design principles, from concept to silicon implementation. My expertise includes Hardware Description Languages (VHDL and System Verilog), as well as hands-on experience of FPGA and ASIC design flows with industry-standard EDA design tools, including Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, and Vivado.

Secure Hardware Design

I lead this master-level module, it cover security and trust from hardware perspectives’ also discusses the vulnerabilities of modern Systems on Chip design flow and how these can become legitimate security threats such as hardware trojans and physical attacks.

Cryptography

I lead this master-level module, it covers the mathematics, techniques, and applications of modern cryptography, it also covers the history of code making and code breaking and draw lessons for the future from the mistakes and successes of the past.

International Teaching Activities

ELEC2221 Digital Systems and Signal Processing at University of Southampton Malaysia Campus

I have taught the digital design part on this second year course, it introduces techniques of designing robust, testable sequential digital systems, writing and debugging synthesisable modules in a hardware description language (System Verilog) and verifying the functionality of those modules by simulation. It provides practical experience in the design and diagnosis of sequential digital systems.

Embedded Systems Design and IoT Technologies: Kazakh-British Technical University

I led this master-level module, it covers the principles of Embedded Systems Design with particular focus on relevant computer architectures such as those by ARM and MIPS.

Introduction on Embedded Systems Security: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany

I led this master-level module, it covers the principles of designing secure embedded systems with reference to new emerging industrial design framework such as ARM PSA and gives detailed information on emerging security primitives such as physically unclonable functions, it also covers a number of related topics including Hardware Trojan and IC-counterfeit.

Hardware-based Security Solutions for the Internet of Things: IEEE Tutorial at Khalifa University, UAE

This tutorial discusses the design challenges of secure IoT systems and how to use hardware security to tackle those challenges, it also explains explain the design principles of Physically Unclonable Functions.

Biography

Prizes

Industrial Fellow of The Royal Academy of Engineering (2019)
National Teaching Fellow Advance(HE) Higher Education United Kingdom (2020)
The Vice-Chancellor Teaching Award (2016)

Dr Basel Halak

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