Rafal Rohozinski

Rohozinski is the author of numerous studies and published articles on topics relating to the security and development dimensions of the information revolution including two studies for the Centre for Strategic Leadership, US Army War College: Shifting Fire examining "information effects" in counterinsurgency and stability operations, and New Media and the Warfighter (the latter based on a case study of the 2006 Hizbullah-Israeli conflict). Rohozinski is the co-editor and contributor to Access Denied: the Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (MIT press) and a follow-up volume entitled Access Controlled examining the emergence of complex information controls in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe countries, including an analysis of strategic cyber-war dimensions of the Russian-Georgian conflict. He has also published on stuxnet and its implications for warfare in cyberspace, and, together with Robert Muggah, defined the concept of open empowerment as a driver of economic, social, and criminological change in Latin America.

Rafal Rohozinski is a Canadian expert and practitioner active in the fields of information security, cyber warfare, and the globalization of armed violence. Rohozinski is a founder and principal investigator of two significant cyber research initiatives: the Infowar Monitor, a joint project between The SecDev Group and the Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, which examines and documents emerging trends in cyber warfare; and, the OpenNet Initiative, a collaboration with the Citizen Lab, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School the Advanced Network Research Group at Cambridge University (now the SecDev Group) and the Oxford Internet Institute, which documents patterns of Internet censorship worldwide. He is a principal investigator and co-author of the 2009 Ghostnet study examining Chinese cyber-espionage.

Rohozinski is also behind several companies active in the cyber, security and development domains. He is the CEO and chairman of the SecDev Group, a Canadian risk consultancy focused evidence-based research in countries and regions at risk from violence and insecurity, which developed the concept of armed violence for OECD. He is also a principal and director of Secdev.cyber, a cyber-security start-up. In 2017, Secdev.cyber was re-launched Zeropoint security. He was formerly the director of the Advanced Network Research Group, Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge (2000-2008), a Ford Foundation Research Scholar of Information and Communication Technologies (2002-2004), and a senior visiting fellow at the International Development Research Centre (Canada), where he developed conceptual approaches to the studying the telegeography of conflict zones, including case study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Between 2007 and 2011 he served on the Estonian E-government academy. He currently sits on the advisory Board of the Canadian Association for Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), and, the Canadian International Council (CIC). He is also a senior fellow for cyber security and future conflict at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Rohozinski’s research and professional activities focus on the nexus of social and technological networks. His work was foundational to the fusion methodology, that underpinned the research conducted by OpenNet Initiative and the Infowar Monitor as well as the commercial work undertaken by the SecDev Group and Zeropoint security. He lectures to government audiences in the UK, US and Canada, and has served as adjunct faculty at US Joint Special Operation University.