Pontus Johnson

Professor

Kungliga Tekniska Högskolanhttps://www.kth.se/profile/pontusj

Works for

Network & Systems Engineering

Telephone

+46 8 790 68 25

Unit address

Teknikringen 33

E-mail

pontusj@kth.se

Researcher ID

ORCID ID

About me

Pontus Johnson is a professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests mainly lie in the areas of offensive cyber security, artificial intelligence and the analysis of architectural models of computer networks. Pontus supervises a number of PhD students and holds courses in Ethical hacking.

He is the director of the Center for Cyber Defense and Information Security at KTH, a collaboration with the Swedish Armed Forces, the National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA), the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB), The Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) and the Swedish Defense University (FHS).

He is also the vice director of the national initiative Cybercampus Sweden, inaugurated February of 2024.

He received his MSc from the Lund Institute of Technology in 1997 and his PhD and Docent titles from the Royal Institute of Technology in 2002 and 2007. He was appointed professor in 2009.

Since 2013, Pontus is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA). From 2024, he is serving on the IVA board as deputy chair. He has previously participated in various IVA projects – most notably the project on Cybersecurity and Competitiveness – chaired IVA's Division II, been a member of the medal committee, among other things.

From 2025, Pontus serves on the board of the Swedish Research Council.

In 2014, he co-foundedForeseeti, a research spin-off company developing cyber security attack simulation software. Foreseeti was acquired by Google in 2022. Since 2023, Google offers Attack Path Simulations to its Cloud customers based on the technology developed by Pontus and his research colleagues. Pontus worked at Google Cloud one day per week from 2022 to 2025.

In 2025, he left Google and started a new company, Nørdsnipe, together with Jacob Henricson, Erik Ringdahl, Sven Hagströmer and Lars Stugemo. Nørdsnipe develops an AI assistant for security testing.

In 2021, Pontus was credited with the discovery of the worlds oldest security vulnerability, Compsci boffin publishes proof-of-concept code for 54-year-old zero-day in Universal Turing Machine (The Register, May 2021). In 2022 as well as 2023, Tech Awards Sweden listed him among the 50 most influential people in Swedish tech.

He has chaired, co-chaired, and participated as steering committee member in many international conferences and workshops and participated in program committees in over fifty such events. He has authored well over 100 scientific articles, mainly on the assessment and prediction of cyber security and other non-functional properties in software and computer networks and the application of artificial intelligence to offensive and defensive cyber security.

Pontus spends 20% of his work time at Nørdsnipe. In the remaining 80%, he is a member of the Software Systems Architecture and Security (SSAS) research group within the Division of Network and Systems Engineering (NSE) at the Department of Computer Science in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at KTH.

Ph.D. Students

If you would like to develop your expertise significantly, consider applying for a PhD student position in our group. We regularly announce new positions.

Simon Gökstorp (Main Supervisor)
Jakob Nyberg (Main Supervisor)
Nikolaos Kakouros (Main Supervisor)
Sandor Berglund (Assistant Supervisor)
Sotirios Katsikeas (2026) (Main Supervisor)
Yeongwoo Kim (2026) (Assistant Supervisor)
Fredrik Heiding (2024) (Assistant Supervisor)
Kim Hammar (2024) (Assistant Supervisor)
Margus Välja (2018) (Assistant Supervisor)
Markus Buschle (2014) (Main Supervisor)
Moustafa Chenine (2013) (Assistant Supervisor)
Ulrik Franke (2012) (Main Supervisor)
Per Narman (2012) (Assistant Supervisor)
Robert Lagerstrom (2010) (Main Supervisor)
Marten Simonsson (2008) (Main Supervisor)
Magnus Gammelgard (2007) (Assistant Supervisor)
Asa Lindstrom (2006) (Assistant Supervisor)
Erik Johansson (2005) (Assistant Supervisor)

Publications

Pontus publication are (usually) available in a link on the right-hand side of the page, and also on Google Scholar.

Vulnerabilities

Check out vulnerabilities discovered by Pontus, his colleagues and students in the Software Systems Architecture and Security (SSAS) research group.

Media Coverage

Hacking Master Thesis Projects

If you would like to do a master thesis project aimed at hacking something, don't hesitate to contact me. Previous projects have targeted control systems, electric locks, electric scooters, motor vehicle remote control units, and more.

Some students were featured in Swedish news outlets in recent years.

Attacken på det uppkopplade hemmet

Gustaf Blomqvist Brister i smartklocka för barn – kan styras av hackare