Hey friends!
I’m conducting doctoral research at Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington investigating the methodologies employed by experienced practitioners in cyber intrusion investigation and response.
Despite the critical importance of incident response to organisational security, our field currently lacks a communicable, tactical framework for practice. Expertise remains largely tacit, transferred informally as “tribal knowledge” rather than through structured, teachable methodology. My research seeks to address this gap by capturing and codifying the processes used by experienced practitioners.
I am seeking participants who meet the following criteria:
- Participation in a minimum of five intrusion investigation and response engagements, OR
- Technical leadership of a minimum of three such engagements
Note that for the purposes of this research, an intrusion is the interactive access to more than one computing system by an attacker, where the access to subsequent systems is dependent on the compromise of previous systems. For example, two different systems being compromised by the same phishing campaign would not meet this criteria, but the compromise of one system leading to lateral movement to a second system would.
Participation involves a 90-minute video-recorded interview comprising two components: questions regarding general experience and professional practice (~30 minutes), followed by a (hopefully fun) tabletop scenario exercise designed to elicit investigative methodology without requiring disclosure of specific client engagements (~60 minutes).
All data will be de-identified and treated confidentially. If you’re interested, you can get a copy of the complete scenario documentation for use in your own professional development activities, along with copies of published research outputs.
Of course, if you participate now, and in the future decide you want to withdraw your consent and provided data, we support this. Please see the Participant Information Sheet for details on the withdrawal process.
Further details are available in the Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form.
To schedule an interview: https://scheduler.zoom.us/pearsoluke1/rq1-booking-page
Whether or not it’s for you, I’d be eternally grateful if you would share this invitation with colleagues who may be interested and meet the eligibility criteria.
This research has been approved by the Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Human Ethics Committee 2026/HE040062.