Matts Karlsson from University Management was pleased to cut the blue and yellow ribbon in B building on Campus Valla and declare the lab inaugurated.
“From my point of view, LiU is Sweden’s most important computer science university. We were the first university to teach computing, in 1975, and we are currently one of the seven AI factories in Europe, that is, we are in the game for everything from cybersecurity to artificial intelligence,” Matts Karlsson said.
He praised the collaboration between the parties who helped create the new lab, and stressed that the students should now be able to work in a cutting-edge environment and feel that "wow, it’s possible to do something exciting here".
“A qualified cybersecurity training environment for the students has been lacking, and the lab meets a great need that ordinary computer halls can’t meet,” said Henrik Eriksson, head of the Department of Computer and Information Science (IDA).
The lab is financed through a strategic initiative by LiU with support from the Faculty of Science and Engineering, IDA and the Department of Electrical Engineering (ISY).
The new lab meets students' needs
Mikael Asplund, senior associate professor at the Department of Computer and Information Science, highlighted LiU’s current focus on cybersecurity education, aimed at both undergraduate students and professionals on commissioned courses. The Master’s Programme in Cybersecurity was launched in 2023 and the first batch of students will soon graduate. The plans for a new lab grew from the need for a physical environment for the students. Not only is the lab a purpose-built physical environment, it is also linked to a protected server environment that makes it possible to practise cybersecurity in a controlled manner.
“We have a long history of both research and education in AI and cybersecurity, so the lab is very well positioned in that way, with a lot of expertise both at IDA and ISY,” said Mikael Asplund, who also highlighted the possibility of new collaborations.
The day also included Mikael Asplund giving a guided tour of the new premises for the close to one hundred participants at the inauguration, where anyone interested could try out a cybersecurity exercise called “Capture the flag”.
Knowing how to build secure systems
The inauguration featured presentations by a security expert paid to break into computer systems and by municipal employees hit by a cyberattack.
Leif Nixon, cybersecurity expert at Combitech and 2023 LiU Alumn of the Year, sees the new lab as an interesting resource. Cyberattacks currently cause billions worth of damage, but building secure computer systems is a challenge he likens to building safe bridges in the 19th century. It took a while to master that engineering domain.
“The biggest challenge in cybersecurity is that we don’t know how to build secure systems. I work in an industry with very high security requirements, but everything becomes very complicated, expensive and oversized, because we don’t know – you have to err on the side of caution. What’s needed is more science and less craft,” said Leif Nixon.
Artificial intelligence is used both to defend and attack systems but, according to Leif Nixon, is most useful when it comes to finding malware.
“What AI is really good at is understanding program code and with that tool you can pretty easily say whether something is malware or not. On the attacker side, there’s not as much benefit from AI. Breaking in is a creative job, and current AI systems aren’t good at finding new tricky solutions.”
Cyberattack against Norrköping Municipality
Fredrik Ekström, head of development, Pamela Pålsson, digital and IT strategist, and IT lawyer Elin Borg, all with Norrköping Municipality, shared their experiences from an actual cyber incident that affected the municipality in November 2022. The incident resulted, among other things, in the closure and restoration of 17,000 accounts. The municipality’s entire IT environment had to be completely rebuilt.
“There’s an entire forensic investigation into what happened, a report stating that based on the indications available it was highly probable that it was a Russian state actor,” said Fredrik Ekström.
Through Norrköping Municipality’s ongoing collaboration with LiU’s IT Management Programme, students spend a 10-month internship there, and they are interested in students with expertise in cybersecurity.
“You don’t have a huge amount of people employed at a municipality, so it’s obviously interesting to get practical help and find cases where you can have a student working on their degree project and being more hands-on. It’s really a rather unique competence in cybersecurity that LiU offers.”
Fredrik Ekström also mentioned that Norrköping Municipality is investing more in its own operational capacity and will seek to employ more IT security specialists in the future.
