Professor Ross Anderson FREng FRS

Ross Anderson's mission was to develop the discipline of security engineering, which investigates how systems can be made robust in the face of malice, error and mischance. He made pioneering contributions to many subdisciplines, including peer-to-peer-networks, hardware tamper resistance and cryptographic protocols. Ross was a designer of the block cipher Serpent, and he worked on many applications with diverse protection requirements such as payment networks, power-line communications, goods vehicle tachographs and clinical information systems.


In addition, Ross helped to found the field of information security economics. Many complex systems fail not for technical reasons, but because of misaligned incentives. Consequently, game theory and microeconomic analysis are nowadays just as important to the security engineer as the mathematics of cryptology.


Ross was the author of the standard text Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems (2008) and regularly contribued to a blog on security research, Light Blue Touchpaper. He has also chairs the Foundation for Information Policy Research.

Professor Ross Anderson FREng FRS died on 28 March 2024.

Professional position

  • Founder and Chair, Foundation for Information Policy Research
  • Professor of Security Engineering, University of Cambridge, University of Cambridge
  • Professor of Security Engineering, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Subject groups

  • Computer Sciences

    Computer science (excl engineering aspects)

  • Engineering and Materials Science

    Engineering, electronics, Communications incl information theory, Computer engineering (including software), Engineering, control (incl robotics)

  • Health and Human Sciences

    Economics

  • Other

    Public understanding of science, Publications

Professor Ross Anderson FREng FRS
Elected 2009
Committees Participated Role
Cybersecurity Research Working Group November 2013 - December 2016 Member
Sectional Committee 4: Engineering December 2012 - November 2015 Member
Audit Committee January 2011 - December 2013 Member
Industry Fellowships Joint Panel January 2010 - December 2012 Member