Dr Mikko S. Niemelä

I research how attackers use information and how organisations can respond. I build cyber intelligence systems and put AI to work in software development and business operations. I have taught at NUS Business School since 2017, bringing academic research and experience from operating real systems into the classroom.

At Cyber Intelligence House, which I founded in Singapore in 2015, we turn fragmented evidence from breaches, malware and underground markets into intelligence organisations can act on. Earlier, my work at Silverskin involved testing organisations through realistic cyberattacks. I later sold my stake to a government-owned defence contractor.

I hold a doctorate in business administration from Singapore Management University, where I studied how hacktivist campaigns affect organisations. My research also covers infostealer and compromised-access markets, machine learning for detecting illicit marketplace activity, and the relationship between dark-web activity, breach disclosure and capital markets.

I have advised INTERPOL, NATO and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on darknet investigations and applications of AI in security and defence. I have also helped the insurance industry quantify cyber risk and develop more objective underwriting assessments.

I developed the Cyber Exposure Index to compare the external exposure of public companies, and SecurityBench.ai to explore repeatable security assessment for AI systems.