Brno as a centre of cybersecurity: universities get two major EU projects
Two universities in Brno, Masaryk University and Brno University of Technology, will lead two new cyber security projects funded by the European Union. Both initiatives benefit from mutual cooperation within the Cyber-security Excellence Hub in Estonia and South Moravia (CHESS) project, which links leading institutions from South Moravia and Estonia working on cyber-security.
Top universities and companies from across Europe submitted 152 project proposals in two calls, of which only a few were selected for implementation - including one project coordinated by Masaryk University (among the top 6 out of 103 proposals submitted in the first call) and one project by Brno University of Technology (among the top 4 out of 49 proposals in the second call).
Masaryk University will coordinate the Cybersecurity Certification and Assessment Tools (CCAT) project, which involves a consortium of nine institutions, universities and companies from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Italy and Germany with a budget of more than EUR 4.2 million.
The project is based on four open-source cybersecurity tools developed in an academic environment. The aim is to prepare them for use in applied non-academic scenarios. The CCAT tools will enable the evaluation of TLS systems, the evaluation of cryptographic devices and software libraries including black box settings, the testing of embedded security architectures (chips) and the analysis of the cybersecurity certification environment.
Petr Švenda, one of the leading researchers from Masaryk University from the Department of Computer Systems and Communications at Faculty of Informatics, says: "The CCAT project shifts our focus from simply discovering vulnerabilities in existing products to proactively providing robust and user-friendly tools that help prevent weaknesses in future designs. Our open source approach also increases the transparency of security testing and allows product users to gain greater visibility into the security of the technologies they rely on."
Brno University of Technology will coordinate the QARC (Quantum-Resistant Cryptography in Practice) project with 18 partners from 12 European countries and a budget of more than EUR 6 million.
The main goal of QARC is to strengthen the transition to quantum-secure cryptography in close cooperation between academia, business and the public sector. The QARC focuses not only on providing and testing technical solutions resistant to quantum attacks, but also on international networking, cooperation between national cybersecurity authorities, roadmapping and harmonisation across EU countries.
The principal investigator of the QARC project, Jan Hajný from Brno University of Technology, says: "QARC is a continuation of our long-term activities in the field of post-quantum cryptography, which began many years ago. Thanks to earlier projects such as CHESS and NESPOQ (Network Cybersecurity in Post-Quantum Era), we have gained a wealth of experience in the design and practical application of quantum secure technologies, such as those currently in use at our Quantum Security Laboratory. The QARC would not have been possible without excellent partners from the Czech Republic, Estonia and ten other European countries, which are best placed to make this project a success."
Both new projects represent a significant shift in the position of South Moravian universities in the European ecosystem of cybersecurity research. Although the region is home to major, globally successful cybersecurity companies, academic institutions from South Moravia have never been at the forefront of EU-funded research and innovation projects. The CCAT and QARC projects mark their entry into the ranks of key cybersecurity players in Europe.
Source: MU Press Release, Brno, 10 April 2025
Photo: Nikola Číková
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