Steven James Murdoch is a British computer security researcher and academic. He holds the position of Professor of Security Engineering in the Computer Science Department at University College London (UCL), where he leads the Information Security Research Group and heads the Foundational Computer Science section.
Murdoch’s research focuses on privacy‑enhancing technologies, internet censorship, and anonymous communication systems, notably the Tor network. He has contributed to the development of the Tor Browser and is a member of the Tor Project. In addition, he is recognised for uncovering multiple vulnerabilities in the EMV (Europay, MasterCard, Visa) chip‑and‑PIN payment system used in bank cards.
He earned his PhD in computer security from the University of Cambridge in 2008 under the supervision of Markus Kuhn; his thesis was titled “Covert channel vulnerabilities in anonymity systems.” Murdoch has been awarded several honours, including a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2012) and the ERCIM Security and Trust Management Working Group Award for his doctoral work. He is a Fellow of both the British Computer Society (FBCS) and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (FIET). In March 2022, he joined the board of the Open Rights Group.
Murdoch maintains an academic website at https://murdoch.is and has published extensively on topics ranging from anonymity system security to financial transaction privacy.