Kostas Papagiannopoulos and Anuj Pathania of the Informatics Institute, in collaboration with Jef Ausloos of the Information Law Institute, Payatu B.V., Riscure B.V. and SUE B.V. received a grant for their project Improved Secure Semiconductor Evaluation (ISSE): From Lab Techniques to Legal Frameworks.

For modern society, it is important to be able to rely on the availability and integrity of digital systems and the confidentiality of data. Cybersecurity is an important prerequisite for minimising the likelihood of damage from for instance, outages.  In addition, it also protects against malicious actors both domestic and from abroad. Knowledge development and innovations are urgently needed for a safe, resilient, autonomous and outward-looking digital Netherlands.

Improved Secure Semiconductor Evaluations (ISSE)

Kostas Papagiannopoulos and Anuj Pathania are researchers of the Parallel Computing Systems (PCS) group. The project named KIC-ISSE stands for Improved Secure Semiconductor Evaluations and aims to make the electronics in our everyday life easier to secure. To achieve this, KIC-ISSE tries to address the modern technical challenges of automation and simulation in secure microchip evaluations. Concurrently, it wants to help security experts to get properly trained and reach their full potential in hacking electronic devices. Finally, the project tries to understand the complex global supply chain of secure devices and evaluations, the legal, economic, and geopolitical dimensions behind it and how to improve the resilience of our digital infrastructure.

The project will employ 2 PhD candidates and 1 post-doctoral research

About the call

The call stems from the Knowledge and Innovation Covenant (KIC) and follows the priorities of the Security, Key Technologies and Digitisation Knowledge and Innovation Agendas, which in this call act jointly in the field of cybersecurity.

In the projects, researchers work closely with public and private parties. This takes advantage of opportunities to strengthen the digital resilience of the Netherlands in practice. The various private parties invest 1.5 million in the research. NWO funds these studies for nearly 9 million.

More information about the awarded projects.