Ms Carol Lo

Qualifications:

CISSP, CISA, CISM, CIA, FCCA, MSc (Distinction), BBA (First Class)

Position:

Postgraduate Researcher, Associate Lecturer in Cyber Security

Department:

College of Arts, Technology and Environment

Telephone:

+441173281948

Email:

Carol.Lo@uwe.ac.uk

Social media:

About me

My pursuit of knowledge brought me from Hong Kong to the University of the West of England, where I earned my MSc in Cyber Security. Alongside my studies, I have taken on teaching and research roles supporting student learning and the development of future cybersecurity professionals.

My doctoral research focuses on detecting stealthy cyber threats in industrial cyber-physical systems (CPS), particularly attacks that exploit legitimate tools and system functions—known as Living-off-the-Land (LOTL) techniques. These threats are challenging to detect and can have serious real-world consequences.

Prior to entering academia, I accumulated 15 years of professional experience, including consulting and assurance work at PricewaterhouseCoopers and internal audit experience within the asset management sector at Link Real Estate Investment Trust. My roles involved IT audit, technology risk consulting, and internal audit engagements, focusing on governance, risk management, and assurance in highly regulated environments.

I hold a BBA (First Class Honours) with a double major in Accountancy and Management Information Systems from the City University of Hong Kong. I am a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), a Certified Internal Auditor (CIA), a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), and hold CISSP and CISM certifications.

Area of expertise

PhD thesis title:
Micro-, meso-, and macro-level detection of Advanced Persistent Threats in industrial cyber-physical systems: A focus on Living-off-the-Land techniques

This research investigates how stealthy, multi-stage cyber-physical attacks can be detected in industrial environments where traditional monitoring approaches often operate in isolation. It proposes a decision fusion framework that integrates evidence from process, network, and host domains to improve detection timeliness and reliability under conditions of partial observability.

The work is evaluated using simulation-based industrial testbeds and demonstrates that combining cross-domain evidence enhances situational awareness compared with single-layer detection approaches. The research contributes practical, human-centred monitoring strategies for industrial cyber-physical systems and supports safer experimentation through reproducible simulation environments.

Director of Studies:
Professor Phil Legg

Supervisors:
Dr Thomas Win (University of Sunderland)
Dr Zeinab Rezaeifar
Professor Zaheer Khan

Research interests:
Industrial cyber-physical system security; Living-off-the-Land attack detection; multimodal information fusion; operational technology security monitoring; interpretable security controls; cyber-physical resilience; integrated auditing; business and IT assurance; IT risk and control assessment; business process improvement.

Publications

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