Person

Prof. Victor Chang

Professor of Business Analytics, Aston Business School

Cyber Security Professional · 2026

Who is

Who is Prof. Victor Chang?

Victor Chang is Professor of Business Analytics at Aston Business School, Aston University, and was named Cyber Security Professional of the Year at the 2026 Cyber Security Awards. His research spans privacy-preserving AI, federated learning, healthcare analytics and cyber security, built on more than twenty-five years across higher education and industry. His best-known technical contribution is the FedAvgVChang architecture, a federated-learning system for intrusion detection that lets organisations train shared detection models locally, so security knowledge spreads without sensitive records ever leaving their source. In the same period, Computing magazine named him to its inaugural AI Leadership Index, the only academic among twenty-five senior practitioners. The Cyber Security Awards recognised him on the strength of that body of work, judged against the criteria for the category.

The work the panel recognised

Sharing threat intelligence is hard when regulation stops you sharing the underlying data. Chang’s FedAvgVChang architecture addresses exactly that: detection models are trained locally across distributed devices, and only what they learn travels, not the raw records. Defenders get the benefit of a wider signal without breaching the rules that govern their data.

It is the kind of contribution the Professional category is meant to surface. A specific, checkable advance, with impact that belongs to the person who built it.

Beyond the award

Chang’s recognition in 2026 sat alongside several other honours in the same window, including a place on Computing’s AI Leadership Index. The Cyber Security Awards judged only the cyber security body of work, against the published criteria, and that is what this page records.

Prof. Victor Chang

The work the panel recognised

Beyond the award

Cyber Security Professional of the Year

Best cyber security leaders, 2026

2026 winners