Category: Cybersecurity

Researchers work to strengthen Beumer’s baggage systems against cyberattacks

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date December 10, 2024

10 December 2024

Researchers work to strengthen Beumer's baggage systems against cyberattacks

Beumer, a Danish logistics giant with baggage handling systems in airports around the world, is particularly focused on the risk of cyberattacks. The company has now partnered with a team of researchers to develop the best defense against hackers.

Over the past year, many Danes have entered airports to go on vacation. In most cases, the trip goes smoothly, but a single cyberattack can turn the situation upside down.

Digital systems are the backbone of modern airport logistics, making them prime targets for hackers. If an airport’s logistics systems are hacked, resulting in delayed baggage, the impact goes beyond just frustration and flight delays. It also highlights serious vulnerabilities in the airport’s security, leading to significant financial losses for both the airport and airlines.

One of the companies committed to safeguarding against cyberattacks is Beumer, a Danish company with hundreds of baggage system experts based in Denmark. With 1,500 baggage handling systems installed in airports worldwide, the threat of cyberattacks has a high priority. As a result, the company has an intensive focus on cybersecurity, continuously enhancing its software to address new cyber threats.

“Cybersecurity is a key concern for our executive management. We are constantly working to improve the resilience of our systems to stay ahead of potential threats, and we are always upgrading the security of the systems we provide to our customers,” says Claus Riber, Senior Manager, Software Cyber Security at Beumer.

A new approach to securing IoT

The Internet of Things (IoT) is increasingly connecting physical products to the internet, including some of Beumer’s baggage handling systems. The advanced software tracks and monitors the real-time location of luggage, improving both efficiency and accuracy in baggage handling.

To stay ahead of cyber threats, Beumer is involved in the Secure Internet of Things project, supported by DIREC. The initiative aims to develop new methods for modeling and assessing cybersecurity risks.

A team of researchers is working to integrate a mathematical model into Beumer’s systems, automating the company’s risk assessments and ensuring its certificates remain up-to-date while complying with the latest standards.

“We want clear answers on the impact of our software decisions. Currently, the process is manual, time-consuming and based on many subjective judgements. We want to be able to tell our customers that our resilience is mathematically proven. That would give us a significant advantage in the market,” says Claus Riber.

A bike lock in cyberspace

The leader of the research team working on improving Beumer’s security is Professor Jaco van de Pol, a computer science expert at Aarhus University. Using the so-called ‘attack-defense trees,’ the researchers can model how hackers could potentially infiltrate the system, allowing Beumer to stay one step ahead.

“It’s about creating an overview of the hacker’s potential moves and calculating the effectiveness of the company’s defense. With the help of algorithms, we can determine the best defense strategy,” says Jaco van de Pol, adding:

“It’s challenging for many companies to know exactly which areas they should prioritize in their security budgets. With our method, we can provide specific estimates that guide vulnerable companies in the right direction. It’s similar to how a knowledgeable bike shop helps you find the right bike lock for your needs.”

Combining solid evidence with practical experience

By combing practical experience with theoretical depth, Beumer expects to be even better prepared for future cybersecurity challenges.

In the coming period, additional workshops will be hold with the research team and numerous discussions will take place about how to implement the researchers’ theoretical approach into Beumer’s daily operations.

“Solid scientific evidence doesn’t always take top priority in the commercial world. That’s why it’s exciting for us to gain insight into the latest academic knowledge and combine it with our hands-on approach in daily operations. So far, the project has saved us considerable time during the research phase, and we look forward to implementing the solutions,” concludes Claus Riber.

From healthcare data to banking information: Researchers aim to share sensitive data for societal benefit

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date November 18, 2024

18 November 2024

From healthcare data to banking information: Researchers aim to share sensitive data for societal benefit

Denmark risks missing out on significant societal advancements because large amounts of sensitive data cannot be shared across organizations. However, a team of computer science researchers has developed an encryption method that enables data to be shared and analyzed anonymously using machine learning.

Every day, companies, researchers, and institutions gather massive quantities of data that remain unused due to privacy concerns or competitive barriers. But what if this data could be anonymized and shared across organizations – for instance to accelerate breakthroughs in medical innovation or to dismantle criminal networks? Secure data sharing and encryption are crucial to turning this vision into reality.

In the Privacy and Machine Learning project, a team of computer scientists, supported by DIREC, has made significant progress toward a solution that lays the groundwork for more intensive data sharing to benefit society.

“There is great potential in using sensitive data to improve various sectors – for instance by developing more effective medicines or enhancing the detection of money laundering. The key is to develop encryption technologies that allow us to process anonymized data securely,” explains Peter Scholl, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Aarhus University and leader of the project.

Decentralized anonymization is the future

The primary challenge in sharing sensitive data lies in ensuring that privacy is maintained during processing. This is where multiparty computation (MPC) comes into play.

MPC is an encryption technique that allows multiple parties to share encrypted data while keeping their individual inputs confidential. This allows the participants to collectively analyze the data and access aggregated results without revealing the sources of the inputs.

“With MPC, we can process data that remains encrypted for all involved parties. No one can view another party’s data, yet they can still derive insights from the results and use them to create innovative products,” Peter Scholl elaborates.

In the financial sector, MPC could enable banks to collaborate on fraud detection by combining payment data without revealing customer identities or competitively sensitive information. Similarly, in healthcare, hospitals could access larger datasets if anonymized patient scans could be shared nationwide.

Striving for efficiency

MPC is not cost-free. Server capacity, power consumption, and other substantial investments play a significant role. Achieving the right balance between cost, security, and performance is a delicate challenge. The research team is also working to enhance the efficiency of encryption processes.

Hiraku Morita, a postdoc in computer science at the Universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, is working to solve this challenge. In the paper MAESTRO: Multi-party AES using Lookup Tables, Morita and his research team introduce a new technique employing lookup tables optimize the required calculations and improve algorithmic efficiency.

“Most people can quickly answer questions like “what is five times five?” because they’ve memorized the tables or can recall them visually. Similarly, we can enable the algorithms to “remember” complex functions, reducing the computational and bandwidth demands,” says Hiraku Morita.

He adds that the technology has already sparked interest in the industry.

“Many companies have expressed interest in adopting our methods, but it often takes a long time to develop a protocol ready for commercial deployment. We anticipate seeing practical applications within the next few years,” Hiraku Morita concludes.

eToro aims to win the Blockchain race with help from the universities

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date October 11, 2024

11 October 2024

eToro Aims to win the Blockchain race with help from the universities

The trading platform eToro is making significant investments in collaboration with the academic world. Most recently, the company’s blockchain lab in Copenhagen welcomed a PhD student to help the company stay on top of the latest knowledge in cryptocurrency and blockchain.

Can one of the world’s leading trading platforms really find the time and resources to engage with academia? For eToro, the answer is a resounding “absolutely!”

 The trading giant operates a blockchain lab in Copenhagen, where it continually tests the latest advancements in blockchain technology to remain at the forefront of innovation. As part of this effort, eToro has partnered with PhD student Henrik Axelsen from the University of Copenhagen through the DIREC-funded project AI & Blockchains for Complex Business Processes.

“We are committed to being leaders in blockchain technology and integrating it into our products. Staying ahead of the curve is crucial to us, which is why we maintain strong ties with the academic world,” says Omry Ross, eToro’s Chief Blockchain Officer, who also serves as a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Computer Science. 

DIREC resolved bureaucratic hurdles 

eToro’s collaboration seeks to bridge the gap between industry and academic research, providing the company with new insights and driving innovation in blockchain technology.

“Knowledge is the currency that keeps us at the cutting edge of AI and blockchain. It is not just about improving our bottom line. It is also about contributing to broader understanding,” says Omry Ross.

However, accessing academic expertise is not always straightforward. Despite eToro’s enthusiasm for research, the company often finds it difficult to engage with researchers due to lengthy application processes and timelines. Fortunately, the streamlined process of the DIREC project allowed eToro to overcome these bureaucratic hurdles.

 ”Commercial companies typically need to move fast, but academia cannot always meet that demand. In the DIREC project, decisions were made very quickly, and the process was simple. I hope this approach becomes more common, because if it were easier to engage PhD students, we would do it far more often,” says Omry Ross. 

Using cryptocurrency to tackle global inequality 

eToro has currently 38 million registered users on its platform, where they can trade everything from individual stocks to cryptocurrencies. In the long term, the company also seeks to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges, such as supporting the 1.3 billion people who currently lack access to traditional financial infrastructure. This was one of the reasons why eToro collaborated with PhD student Henrik Axelsen, who explored, among other things, how blockchain can help the financial sector.

“We believe blockchain can enable us to improve financial services, making them more efficient and better equipped to address issues like financial inclusion,” says Omry Ross.

 An example of eToro’s dedicaton to this cause is the GoodDollar initiative, which aims to reduce global inequality by distributing a universal basic income (UBI) through the cryptocurrency GoodDollar. To date, this digital currency has been distributed to nearly one million people without access to a bank.

“The GoodDollar project hightlights how cryptocurrency can offer tangible benefits to millions of people excluded from the traditional financial systems,” Omry Ross concludes. 

Interested in learning more about eToro’s involvement in academia and the “AI & Blockchains for Complex Business Processes” project? Find out more about the project here.

Cybersecurity News

When big data fails: Researcher from ITU unveils gaps in mobility data

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date October 10, 2024

10 October 2024

When big data fails: Researcher from ITU unveils gaps in mobility data

GPS and cell tower data have become essential tools in shaping our society. However, these digital footprints often contain significant biases that favor some social groups over others. In a new project funded by DIREC, Associate Professor Vedran Sekara from ITU seeks to address biases in mobility data.

In today’s world, whether you are commuting to work or fleeing a crisis, travel cards and smartphones leave behind digital traces, that provide valuable insights into human movement. These mobility data, collected through interactions with cell towers and GPS satellites, serve as a powerful resource for decision-makers, urban planners, and health authorities. But what if these digital maps of human activity only reflect the experiences of some groups while overlooking others?

This is the central question posed by Vedran Sekara, Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. Over the past year, with support from the Digital Research Centre Denmark (DIREC), he has explored this issue in the research project “Understanding Biases and Diversity of Big Data used for Mobility Analysis.”

The hidden inequality in data

Today, mobility data is employed in a wide range of applications, from urban planning and epidemic tracking to disaster management. However, Sekara has identified alarming biases within the algorithms that process these data – biases he seeks to correct.

According to Sekara, most mobility data is skewed. In some datasets, he found that half of the mobility data is generated by the wealthiest 20% of the population, while only 5% comes from the poorest 20%.

“There are distinct patterns in smartphone ownership – typically, it is the wealthy, men, and the highly educated who possess them. As a result, women, the elderly, and children are significantly underrepresented in mobility data collected via phones. Despite this bias, these data are used to shape societal decisions,” Vedran Sekara explains.

The biases in mobility data are not just an academic concern – they have real world consequences for resource allocation.

“There is a significant risk that our efforts are disproportionately directed towards helping those who generate the most data, who are often the wealthiest and most powerful in society, while the needs of the poor are overlooked. During earthquakes or epidemics, we have seen that poor regions are less represented in the data, which could lead to fewer resources being allocated to them. Since we have better data for the wealthier areas, more aid is sent there”, says Vedran Sekara.

Searching for solutions

In his research project, Vedran Sekara and his team are working to develop new algorithms to correct these biases. However, the challenge is proving to be highly complex.

“We found that to correct these biases, we need to create specific models for each local area. Every area has its own unique biases, which means we can’t apply the same algorithms universally,” says Vedran Sekara.

With DIREC’s support of 500,000 DKK, Vedran and his team have published several articles on the subject. The project has also opened doors for additional funding, potentially enabling further research on biases in mobility data.

“DIREC’s support has been invaluable. They have provided the necessary funding to explore the problem on a smaller scale, laying the groundwork for larger projects in the future. DIREC has truly been a catalyst for this research,” concludes Vedran Sekara.

All data used in Vedran Sekara’s research is pseudonymized, in compliance with both European and American data regulations.

Learn more about the project here.

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Cybersecurity News

Researchers have developed secure digital voting booths – but will voters trust blockchain?

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date June 21, 2024

21 JUNE 2024

Researchers have developed secure digital voting booths – but will voters trust blockchain?

For the first time, researchers at Aarhus University and Lars Seier Christensen’s Concordium have demonstrated the security of blockchain software for conducting secure online elections. The challenge now lies in fostering trust in the technology.

Photo: Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University. From left: Bas Spitters, Benjamin Salling Hvass, Lasse Letager Hansen, Eske Hoy Nielsen

The 2024 election year is set to be historic, with half of the world’s population voting in political elections. However, amidst geopolitical tensions and rapid technological advancements, concerns persist about the accuracy of vote counting and the fair distribution of power, free from external interference.

How can we ensure that important elections are as secure as possible, whether for the chairman of a chess club or the President of the United States? And can this be achieved online?

Elections require a secure database and, with its cryptographic foundations, blockchain technology offers a highly secure solution. In 2023, Aarhus University and the Alexandra Institute received 1.8 million DKK from DIREC for the project Verified Voting Protocols and Blockchains. This project aims to rigorously test the encrypted protocols that will be the backbone of secure online elections in the future.

Bas Spitters, an associate professor at Aarhus University and head of the Concordium Blockchain Research Center (CoBRA), leads the project, which is nearing completion. Alongside the PhD students Lasse Letager Hansen and Eske Hoy Nielsen, he has mathematically proven that the blockchain protocol OpenVoteNetwork is correctly implemented and encrypted to a degree suitable for use in elections. This marks the first time a blockchain protocol and its software implementation has been mathematically secured and verified.

“We employ best practices in cryptography and programming languages to ensure that the protocol is secure. As a result, we can now confirm that the protocol’s security is completely mathematically proven,” says Bas Spitters.

Enhancing election security across all sectors

In an era where digital self-service is standard in public administration, physical ballots remain a steadfast tradition. However, in recent years, there has been growing interest in internet-based voting among election commissions worldwide.

Countries like Switzerland, Estonia, Brazil, and India are experimenting with online parliamentary elections. This solution is also highly relevant for elections in municipalities, corporations, and universities, which currently lack robust online security.

The issue is that many current internet-based elections are flawed because their security cannot be verified. Therefore, they are vulnerable to external interference, and voters are uncertain if their votes are accurately counted. The same problem applies to postal voting, which countries like France are exploring for online implementation.

“If you vote by mail, you need to cast your vote well in advance, which means you miss out on a significant portion of the political debate. You also rely on the security of the postal service and every subsequent step. However, with a secure online protocol that meets the highest standards, you can vote on the day of the election via the internet and even receive proof that your vote has been counted,” says Bas Spitters.

Building industry trust

The Verified Voting Protocols and Blockchains project is a collaboration between Aarhus University and the Alexandra Institute, and it is also attracting interest from the industry.

The Swiss blockchain company Concordium, founded and chaired by the Danish entrepreneur Lars Seier Christensen, is an industry partner in the project and plans to use the protocol for internal company voting. In collaboration with Aarhus University and Benjamin Salling Hvass from the Alexandra Institute, researchers have integrated a verified cryptographic library into Microsoft’s ElectionGuard voting software, which Concordium can now utilize.

With the mathematical proof established, the software can swiftly be adapted to manage election scenarios beyond those at Concordium. Whether the general public will vote for their political candidates online is simply a matter of trust, explains Daniel Tschudi, Senior Researcher at Concordium:

“Ballots are easy to trust because we rely on officials and election monitors to uphold security. Trusting new technology, even when mathematically proven secure, presents greater challenges. Ultimately, it’s about building trust in the technology and the security standards which researchers have developed and tested.”

The project aims to influence the minimum security requirements for online voting. Daniel Tschudi is confident that the researchers’ accomplishments will resonate widely:

“Once the protocol is thoroughly verified and certified to the highest standards, it can be applied to elections across all societal sectors,” he concludes.
The Verified Voting Protocols and Blockchains project is scheduled for completion in 2025. Read more about the project here.

This news article was brought in ITWatch on 18 June 2024

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Cybersecurity News

Researchers and industry are investigating the possibilities of blockchain-based voting

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date December 22, 2022

22 DECEMBER 2022

Researchers and industry are investigating the possibilities of blockchain-based voting

Aarhus University and the Alexandra Institute have been granted DKK 1.8 million by Digital Research Centre Denmark (DIREC) to investigate safe software and protocols for voting and blockchain governance. The Concordium Blockchain is the industry partner in this project.

There is constant interest for internet voting by election commissions around the world. At the same time, there is a need for such internet voting for blockchain governance. However, building such voting systems is hard: the design of cryptographic protocols and their implementation are error prone. Switzerland, which is leading in internet voting, now mandates very high standards for such protocols: it requires cryptographic proofs of security.

Only a very select group of blockchain projects already develops protocols in such a rigorous way. One of them, Concordium, has already deployed such secure cryptographic protocols. They were designed at COBRA, the Concordium Blockchain Research Center at Aarhus University. Thus, the project aims to build on this experience and advance the state of the art in high assurance cryptographic software, especially for internet voting systems and blockchain governance.

DIREC, a collaboration between the computer science departments of eight Danish universities and the Alexandra Institute, has just granted the group DKK 1.8 million for the project: Verified Voting Protocols and Blockchains. The Concordium Blockchain is the industry partner in this project.

Bas Spitters, Associate Professor at Aarhus University and lead of the Concordium Blockchain Research Center at Aarhus University (CoBRA), is leading the project. He is internationally recognized for his research in the verification of blockchain technologies and sees great potential for the project:

“All electronic voting protocols use some kind of bulletin board. Blockchains are secure bulletin boards. They are already used in minor elections to ensure that voters can check that their votes have been registered correctly. In this project, we will explore whether it can also be used in larger elections. In particular, we aim to verify that the protocols used to verify the votes are private and secure.”

Kåre Kjelstrøm, CTO at Concordium, says: “There are of course many advantages in an online election, however distrust and a lack of regulation-ready and secure solutions have prevented most countries from moving forward. From Concordium, a science-based decentralized blockchain with the identity at the protocol level, we are eager to participate and solve the potential problems in building online elections on our chain. Concordium plans to design a voting scheme to be used for decentralized governance of the blockchain. The voting scheme will allow members of the community to vote on proposed features and to elect members of the Governance Committee.”

Gert Læssøe Mikkelsen, Head of Security Lab, Alexandra Institute says:  “This project provides a good opportunity for testing novel technologies in solutions for critical digital infrastructure where very high security is required. We will test and participate in the implementation of the solutions developed in the project, and we want to let more industries benefit from the experiences of working with blockchain, digital identity and high security, e.g., public utilities and the finance sector”.

A research project on internet elections in Greenland must provide a better basis for decision

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date December 7, 2022

7 December 2022

A research project on internet elections in Greenland must provide a better basis for decision

A group of researchers from the IT University will – in collaboration with the Greenlandic authorities – investigate how an internet election will affect the voters’ confidence in the electoral process. DIREC has granted the group 1.8 million DKK for the project.

In a time where we can deal with many things online, it may seem strange that voters in the vast majority of the world’s democracies still have to cast their votes by physically attending a polling station. The reason for this is that it is extremely difficult to ensure that everything takes place according to the democratic regulations when an election is held online. For example, it is difficult to maintain the secrecy of the vote, just as there is a fear of giving hackers an increased opportunity of altering the votes.

Having said that, there are of a lot of arguments in favour of internet elections, not least in Greenland, where the enormous distances, for example, can make it difficult to reach everyone with physical ballots in time. And this is exactly one of the reasons why a change in the law in 2020 paved the way for the Greenlandic government to give Greenlanders the opportunity to cast their vote online in the future. Greenland can thus become one of the few places in the world where the critized internet voting systems can be put into use.

A group of researchers from the IT University will now, in collaboration with the Greenlandic authorities, investigate how an internet election will affect the voters’ confidence in the electoral process. DIREC, which is partially financed by the Innovation Fund, has granted the group DKK 1.8 million for the project: Trust through Software Independence and Program Verification, which aims to investigate whether the technical software verifications in the internet election systems will increase trust among the voters.

– My goal is to give the Greenlandic decision-makers good conditions for deciding which system they should use to hold online elections. From a research point of view, the project can also be valuable. Technologically speaking, we are moving into unknown territory and depending on our results, you can easily imagine that the many, many countries that can see the benefits of an election will be able to use our results as well. And finally, Greenland – with its limited population and great distances – is an optimal place to start from, says professor at the IT University, Carsten Schürmann, who is Principal Investigator on the project.

New technologies can help banks, insurance companies and authorities fight fraud

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date April 26, 2022

26 APRIL 2022

New technologies can help banks, insurance companies and authorities fight fraud

Blockchain-based technologies can not only be used for cryptocurrencies. The technology eliminates the need for an intermediary when making transactions between two parties and can ensure that data cannot be modified.

By combining this feature with cryptographic techniques will enable banks and authorities to share sensitive personal data securely and enable them to fight fraud. This is exactly the purpose of a new project between researchers from Aarhus University, the IT University of Copenhagen and the Alexandra Institute, which is supported by DIREC – Digital Research Centre Denmark.

A new project will make it easier to design and certify IoT systems

Post author By Susanne Brøndberg
Post date December 8, 2021

8 December 2021

A new project will make it easier to design and certify IoT systems

IoT devices are blending into the infrastructure of both society and our personal lives. Many of these devices run in uncontrolled, potentially hostile environments, which makes them vulnerable to security attacks. Moreover, with the increasing number of safety critical IoT devices, such as medical and industrial IoT devices, IoT security is a public safety issue. Thus, the need for security in these systems has even been recognized at governmental and legislative level, e.g. in the EU, US and UK, resulting in a proposed legislation to enforce at least a minimum of security consideration in deployed IoT products.

Photo by Søren Kjeldgaard

Professor Jaco van de Pol will lead the DIREC project Secure IoT systems (SIoT), which aims to model security threats and countermeasures for IoT systems and services, to develop secure solutions, and to analyze residual security risks.

“Our goal with the SiOT project is to make it easier to design and certify secure IoT devices. Security and privacy are very important to many people and organizations that use IoT devices for measurements in smart cities, natural environments, logistics chains, and in their private homes. Engineering IoT devices is challenging, since they are physically small and must run on low power. Yet, they must perform accurate measurements and communicate with high efficiency. So how can one achieve security on top of that? We will provide new tools to model security threats, implement countermeasures, and analyze the final security risks”.

Jaco van de Pol continues: “I am happy to be able to work with a team that includes both academic researchers and industrial experts. This will ensure that the project addresses the right questions, and that we can find new solutions by combining the expertise from several disciplines. And we can evaluate the solutions in an industrial setting.”

The strategy is to use algorithms from automata theory and game theory to automate risk analysis and security strategy synthesis. The implementation of the security policies will consider both technical as well as social aspects, in particular usability in organizations and training of people.

For TERMA A/S, who are part of the project, their motivation is to be aware of the landscape in IoT systems in order to make them more cyber-resilient. Samant Khajuria, Chief Specialist Cybersecurity at TERMA A/S, explains:

“When we integrate IoT systems in our line of business, our main purpose is to provide safety for critical systems. Our systems go both to the defense and civilian sector such as Wind Farms, airports or harbors. We know that IoT devices sooner or later become obvious pieces of the puzzle in providing good systems in the future. And before integrating in systems like this we need to understand the threats and risks. Secondly, we would like to collaborate with universities in Denmark, because the researchers are working with this everyday. We are merely the users of the technology.”

Jørgen Hartig is Managing Director and Partner in SecurIOT, who are also part of the project. He hopes the project will help create the needed awareness on both sides of the “table” about the environment of industry 4.0. They often hear customers saying: “Why would the hackers go for us? We do not produce anything interesting…” or “the production has been for 25 years, and we haven’t had an issue” or “there are no connections between IT systems and OT systems.”

“The last statement will be challenged dramatically in the next 5-10 years. IoT and OT vendors will come out with new technology solutions that will utilize cloud-enabled applications and 5G connections to the factory floor, so there will be no “air-gap” in the future. I am not saying it is wrong, I am just saying that the consumers and IoT vendors need to work with the cyber threats and risks in a structured way.”

According to Gert Læssøe Mikkelsen, Head of Security Lab at the Alexandra Institute, there is a need for improved cyber security in IoT, which is also the reason why they participate in the project:

“We see a need for academic research in close collaboration with industry to deal with this. We hope that the tools and methodologies developed in this project will be deployed and improve the cybersecurity of IoT so we are all ready for the future, where we both expect an increase in the threats from cybercriminals and, as a consequence, an increase in requirements and regulation in this area that the industry must be ready to handle.”

About DIREC – Digital Research Centre Denmark

The purpose of the national research centre DIREC is to bring Denmark at the forefront of the latest digital technologies through world-class digital research. To meet the great demand for highly educated IT specialists, DIREC also works to expand the capacity within both research and education of computer scientists. The centre has a total budget of DKK 275 million and is supported by the Innovation Fund Denmark with DKK 100 million. The partnership consists of a unique collaboration across the computer science departments at Denmark’s eight universities and the Alexandra Institute.

The activities in DIREC are based on societal needs, where research is continuously translated into value-creating solutions in collaboration with the business community and the public sector. The projects operate across industries with focus on artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, algorithms and cybersecurity among others.

Researchers work to strengthen Beumer's baggage systems against cyberattacks

A new approach to securing IoT

A bike lock in cyberspace

Combining solid evidence with practical experience

From healthcare data to banking information: Researchers aim to share sensitive data for societal benefit

Decentralized anonymization is the future

Striving for efficiency

eToro Aims to win the Blockchain race with help from the universities

DIREC resolved bureaucratic hurdles

Using cryptocurrency to tackle global inequality

When big data fails: Researcher from ITU unveils gaps in mobility data

The hidden inequality in data

Searching for solutions

Researchers have developed secure digital voting booths – but will voters trust blockchain?

Enhancing election security across all sectors

Building industry trust

Researchers and industry are investigating the possibilities of blockchain-based voting

A research project on internet elections in Greenland must provide a better basis for decision

New technologies can help banks, insurance companies and authorities fight fraud

A new project will make it easier to design and certify IoT systems

About DIREC – Digital Research Centre Denmark

Contact info

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DIREC resolved bureaucratic hurdles 

Using cryptocurrency to tackle global inequality 