Information security
Cryptographic building blocks, trust management, context-based security, access control, authentication and authorisation, cybersecurity evaluation and critical-infrastructure protection.
Laboratory of Open Systems and Networks has years of experience in research and development in the field of information security, privacy protection and cyber crime. Security research was performed both from the technical and socio-economic point of view.
Current activities
Current activities are focused on AI-based cybersecurity, quantum key distribution, critical infrastructure protection, and identity management.
In the Cybersecurity and large language models project, we are investigating the possibility of using large language models (LLM) to enhance cybersecurity and to locally deploy and fine-tune an open source LLM for cybersecurity needs. The results will enable a better understanding of the role, potential and performance requirements of LLM-based systems in cybersecurity, and facilitate the integration of such systems into existing IT systems and with other security solutions, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, etc.
SiQUID (Slovenian Quantum Communication Infrastructure Demonstration) aims at establishing quantum key distribution (QKD) links among multiple government nodes in Slovenia, while also creating a test-bed quantum network for advanced quantum-communication protocols among research institutions in Ljubljana. Our laboratory is involved in collecting use cases and defining system security requirements, as well as in assessing the risks of deploying QKD technology and interconnection with existing security systems. The role of quantum technologies in the field of security is investigated in the KVANTEH project.
Previous results
In the DEFENDER project we are addressing the issues of European critical energy infrastructures security and dependability. The laboratory leads the work on cyber-physical threats assessment and analysis and contributes to the development and implementation of the project threat mitigation and situation awareness solutions.
The main goal of the DE4A, SI-PASS 2.0, SI-PASS and eID4U projects was to set up an infrastructure for secure cross-border services in different application domains. The DE4A project facilitated migration towards secure European digital public services co-delivered across borders, across sectors and with different participants, and implemented the latest EU directives and regulations (e.g. Single Digital Gateway). The SI-PASS 2-0 and SI-PASS project, which were coordinated by the Laboratory for Open Systems and Networks, established the central eIDAS node in Slovenia at the Ministry of Public Administration and integrated various public and private cross-border e-services in the fields of e-government, e-health, higher education, municipalities, health, pension and disability insurance, intellectual property protection, company registers, financial services, and e-commerce. In the eID4U project, we also linked the test eIDAS node with trusted sources of information about students (central evidence system for e-higher education eVŠ) and various e-learning services.
Identity and digital certificate-based services, e.g. the first public-key certification authority in Slovenia, were developed in various projects, such as ICE-TEL, ICE-CAR, CADENUS and NASTEC. Experience gained was also used in preparation of Slovenian Electronic commerce and electronic signature act.
In the FP5 FAIN project, we have designed and implemented a flexible, adaptable and dependable network element based on the active networks principles, while the final result of the FP6 DIADEM project was a distributed firewall prototype. In the FP6 DAIDALOS integrated project architecture for privacy provision in pervasive systems and a protocol for trust negotiation between users and pervasive service providers were developed.
The FP7 P2P-Next project was focused toward development of an open source, efficient, trusted, personalized, user-centric and participatory content delivery system with social and collaborative connotation using the Peer-to-Peer paradigm. Distributed access control to the multimedia content was enabled by the newly developed ECS (Enhanced Closed Swarm) protocol that became an item of standardization within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
In order to improve authentication and prevent identity theft a novel graphical recognition-based authentication system for mobile devices has been developed. Within the national competence centre on cloud computing (CLASS) a cloud single sign-on solution has been developed that enables unified authentication in diverse cloud environments. Using the solution enterprises or institutions can mitigate some of cloud security risks and simplify user accounts and credentials management.
Within the EU STORK 2.0 and eSENS CIP projects we have contributed building blocks for a pan-European e-identity infrastructure that solves e-identity interoperability problems within Europe and supports a number of e-identity based services, such as e-learning, e-banking, e-business etc. We have also established three cross-border education and academic e-services: virtual learning environment, anonymous e-surveys, and job selection service. The services promise to be beneficial both for students and higher educational institutions, as well as for companies that make decisions on the basis of proven academic information, for example when validating job applicant’s qualifications in an electronic way.
As part of the “Dynamic Forensics Evaluation and Training (DFET)” project activities from the EU “Prevention of and Fight Against Crime “ (ISEC) programme we have created a cloud-based platform for digital forensics education and training, named EDUFORS. The platform enables automatic and dynamic generation, delivery and evaluation of investigation challenges that law enforcement officers, students and security specialists have to solve with cyber forensic analytical tools.
Within the “Cybercrime and cyberterrorism European research agenda (COURAGE)” project we have made a contribution to the research and development agenda in the area of the fight against cybercrime and cyberterrorism (CC/CT).
The fight against cybercrime was the main focus of the SENTER project that created a single point of reference for EU national cybercrime centres of excellence (CoE) and developed further national CoE into well-defined and well-functioning community. Laboratory for Open Systems and Networks was acting in the project as Slovenian CoE.
With regard to trust and reputation management we are investigating and improving on-line trust and reputation mechanisms and introduce new insights in the management of trust information under uncertainty.
From the socio-economic point of view we were analysing the assessment of the appropriate investment that is economically affordable and provides enough protection for the enterprise information systems.