Stig Frode Mjølsnes

Stig Frode Mjølsnes serves as a Professor in the Department of Information Security and Communication Technology within the Faculty of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). His research spans mobile network security, cryptographic protocols, and privacy engineering, with particular focus on vulnerabilities in LTE/4G systems and subscriber identification mechanisms. His office is located at Elektro B, B219, Gløshaugen, OS Bragstads plass 2, and he maintains active research collaborations internationally.

Professor Mjølsnes' research interests center on mobile network security with emphasis on privacy exposure in cellular systems, cryptographic protocol design, and security education. His work has systematically exposed critical vulnerabilities in LTE paging mechanisms that enable IMSI catchers and subscriber tracking, while developing practical countermeasures through privacy-preserving identification protocols. He bridges theoretical cryptography with real-world implementation challenges, particularly in wireless communication systems where security flaws have immediate practical consequences. His research methodology combines formal protocol analysis with experimental network security testing.

His publication record demonstrates consistent focus on mobile network privacy vulnerabilities, particularly in LTE systems, where his team has documented low-cost attack methodologies accessible even to non-programmers. The research trajectory shows evolution from foundational cryptographic work toward applied security testing frameworks that have influenced both academic understanding and practical security implementations in mobile networks. His contributions include developing educational tools for security experimentation and analyzing cryptographic weaknesses in voting systems.

Professor Mjølsnes actively contributes to the academic community through conference organization, particularly the Norwegian ICT Conference for Research and Education (NISK), where he has served as program chair. His editorial work includes prefaces for major security conference proceedings published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. He has also contributed to security standardization discussions through technical reports and government consultations.

His teaching philosophy emphasizes hands-on security education, as evidenced by publications on security laboratory didactics and mobile network security experimentation frameworks. He has developed practical educational approaches for teaching information security through software laboratories and web security exercises, focusing on bridging theoretical knowledge with practical implementation skills.