In a digital world with new technologies such as IoT and AI/LLMs, the need for security is growing. Despite promises that “AI will help us solve these problems”, and rising cyberthreats, there still seems to be much more focus on new functionality, with security often coming later (if at all). Danish Universities have leading experts in cybersecurity and how to design and write secure SW. However, we see a huge rise in SW vulnerabilities, and when made public, the vulnerabilities are exploited faster and faster.

With all the knowledge of how to write and deploy secure software why do we still see so many security breaches, and what can we as academics do? There is a need for addressing this gap, especially in a world where threats from cybercriminals and hybrid warfare are on the increase. Likewise, there is a need for crossdiciplinary collaboration and solutions in this field.

This is a crossdiciplinary session combining cyber security, software development and related topics.

Program

Short presentations/motivation for this session (30 minutes)

• Diego F. Aranha: Security issues CS students find when checking apps
  and applications deployed and used in production.
• Gert Læssøe Mikkelsen: What we see when we work with SME’s in the
  industry, incl. input from industry.

Facilitated discussion (60 minutes)
How can we, as academics, contribute to and influence the development of software within the broader industry?

Expected outcome of this session:

• Advice to policymakers, e.g. through Cybersikkerhedsrådet and for the next Danish National Strategy for Cyber and Information Security
• Advice to industry
• To address the increased need for, and focus on, cybersecurity in society:
  – Ideas for new research topics in this area
  – Ideas for further collaboration

Organizers

• Gert Læssøe Mikkelsen, Alexandra Institute, gert.l.mikkelsen@alexandra.dk (main organizer)
• Diego F. Aranha, Computer Science Aarhus University, dfaranha@cs.au.dk (co-organizer)
• Sigrid Nielsen Saabye, Alexandra Institute, sigrid.saabye@alexandra.dk (co-organizer)

Level

Introductory to advanced, with the majority centered around discussions