As the CHESS project enters its final phase, consortium members continue to share project results with the communities that can put them into practice.
At the beginning of June, eleven project members attended the Information Security Summit Prague (IS2), one of the longest-running cybersecurity conferences in Central Europe. CHESS contributed to the programme through expert talks, a practical workshop, technology demonstrations and a dedicated project booth. With participants coming from industry, government, academia, critical infrastructure operators, telecommunications companies and financial institutions, it was a valuable opportunity to discuss the practical applicability of project outcomes.
One of the highlights was the presentation of the INJECT Exercise Platform from Masaryk University. The talk focused on innovative approaches to tabletop exercises and crisis preparedness. Traditional tabletop exercises often rely on paper-based scenarios and manual facilitation. INJECT offers a different approach: it is an open-source platform that helps organisations prepare, run and evaluate interactive exercises in a digital environment. Participants learned how realistic scenarios and simulations can support better incident response and crisis management. The presentation was complemented by a hands-on workshop, where conference participants experienced the platform in practice through a realistic cybersecurity incident scenario.
Another CHESS contribution focused on cybersecurity certification and transparency. Vašek Matyáš and Petr Švenda from Masaryk University presented the sec-certs framework, a tool developed to support analysis of security certification ecosystems. Their presentation demonstrated how publicly available certification documents can be transformed into a valuable source of information about certified products, certification processes, cryptographic dependencies and software supply chains. The work provides organisations with new ways to understand certification landscapes and identify systemic risks that may otherwise remain hidden.
The conference programme also included presentations from Estonian CHESS partners. Jan Willemson from Cybernetica offered an inside look at Estonia’s internationally recognised Internet voting system, discussing its development, major design decisions and the challenges of maintaining trust in digital elections. Rain Ottis from Tallinn University of Technology presented the Estonian experience with volunteer cyber defence, explaining how cybersecurity experts contribute to national resilience through the Cyber Defence Unit of the Estonian Defence League and how volunteer expertise can strengthen national cybersecurity capabilities.
Visitors to the CHESS booth could also explore a demonstration of a hardware-accelerated post-quantum encryptor presented by Brno University of Technology. The demonstrated solution can protect network traffic at speeds of up to 100 Gb/s while using cryptographic mechanisms designed to resist attacks from future quantum computers. The demonstration attracted significant interest from participants seeking
practical approaches to the post-quantum transition and quantum-safe communication infrastructures.
Together, these contributions showed the breadth of expertise represented within CHESS. The topics ranged from cybersecurity training and crisis preparedness to security certification, electronic voting, national cyber defence and post-quantum cryptography. Although diverse, they all addressed the same key challenge: how to turn cybersecurity research into practical tools, methods and solutions that organisations and society can adopt.
