Two Brno universities, Brno University of Technology and Masaryk University, will lead two new EU-funded cybersecurity projects. Both initiatives have their roots in collaboration within the Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia (CHESS) – a project that has brought together the leading cybersecurity institutions in South Moravia and Estonia.
Top universities and companies from across Europe submitted 152 project proposals in two calls, of which only very few were selected for implementation – including one project coordinated by Brno University of Technology (among the top 4 out of 49 in the second call) and one by Masaryk University (among the top 6 out of 103 proposals submitted in the first call).
Brno University of Technology is going to coordinate the QARC (Quantum-Resistant Cryptography in Practice) project with 18 partners from 12 European countries and a budget of more than 6 mil. EUR.
The main objective of QARC is to enhance the transition to quantum-safe cryptography in a close collaboration among academia, businesses and public sector. QARC is focused not only on delivering and testing technical solutions resistant to quantum attacks but also on international networking, collaboration of national cybersecurity authorities, road mapping, and harmonisation across EU countries.
The QARC Principal Investigator, Jan Hajny from Brno University of Technology, comments: “QARC is the continuation of our long-term activities in post-quantum cryptography that started many years ago. Thanks to past projects, such as CHESS and NESPOQ (Network Cybersecurity in Post-Quantum Era), we have rich experience with the design and practical deployment of quantum-safe technologies, such as those currently present in our Quantum Security Lab. QARC would not be possible without excellent partners from Czechia, Estonia, and 10 more European countries that have the best qualifications for this project to succeed.”
Masaryk University will coordinate a project Cybersecurity Certification and Assessment Tools (CCAT), implemented by a consortium of nine institutions, universities and companies from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy and Germany with a budget of over 4,2 mil. EUR.
The project builds on four open-source cybersecurity tools developed in academia. The aim is to make them ready for use in applied, non-academic scenarios. The CCAT tools will enable the assessment of TLS systems, evaluation of cryptographic devices and software libraries, including blackbox setups, testing of embedded security architectures (chips), and analysing cybersecurity certification landscapes.
Petr Švenda, one of the leading researchers from Masaryk University, says: “This initiative shifts our focus from merely detecting vulnerabilities in existing products to proactively providing robust and user-friendly tools that help prevent weaknesses in future designs. At the same time, our open-source approach enhances transparency in security testing, empowering product users with greater insight into the security of the technologies they rely on.”
On top of that, the CHESS Excellence Hub also received funding for an ERA Talents project SECURE-NET. The SECURE-NET, coordinated by the University of Tartu in Estonia, boosts industry-academia mobility among the CHESS regions and beyond, with Lithuania, Netherlands and Ukraine.
Liina Kamm, a senior researcher from Cybernetica, the company involved in all new projects, says: “The largest benefit of the collaboration with our partners in South Moravia is that there is great knowledge in many areas of cybersecurity that is a little bit different from what there is in Estonia. This kind of variety of viewpoints is a great help in advancing research and development.”