Toby Murray

Toby develops mathematical methods for checking whether software maintains its intended security boundaries. The co-authored work on time protection gives researchers studying seL4 a way to connect timing-leak defences with existing information-flow proofs. This supports software quality by making security claims more precise and connecting reasoning about operating-system behaviour with the hardware underneath.

Toby Murray is a Professor at the University of Melbourne, researching cost-effective approaches to building highly secure computing systems. Much of this research focuses on formal verification techniques for operating systems and concurrent software. Before moving to Melbourne in May 2016, Toby worked in NICTA’s Software Systems Research Group, now part of Data61, alongside serving as a Conjoint Senior Lecturer at UNSW’s School of Computer Science and Engineering.

In 2023, Toby co-authored ‘Proving the Absence of Microarchitectural Timing Channels’, examining information leaks that arise from timing variations within processor architectures. The paper formalises time protection mechanisms prototyped in seL4 and links hardware behaviour to existing mathematical proofs of information flow. By evaluating whether security boundaries hold across entire systems, this work extends software quality assurance well beyond traditional defect hunting.