HAIC

HAIC Talk with Riccardo Sisto
2025-10-20 16:00 - 17:30 (Europe/Helsinki) | Dipoli, Lumituuli, Otakaari 24, Espoo, 02150, Finland
On the security of eBPF Linux kernel extensions
Lecture description: eBPF is a very powerful new technology that is revolutionising the approach to system operations, such as system and network monitoring and security enforcement. Since it is based on enabling the execution of user-provided code in the kernel, the flexibility and performance advantages it provides come with a price in terms of security risk. Even though eBPF was endowed with security mechanisms designed to counter the main possible threats, such mechanisms are far from perfect and have their own vulnerabilities.
The purpose of this talk is to present the main security issues of eBPF, including attack surfaces and countermeasures, and to discuss the underlying risks and future trends. The talk is based on studies done within the Elastic EU Project.
About the speaker: Riccardo Sisto is a Full professor at the Turin Polytechnic, Italy, in the Department of Control and Computer Engineering, where he leads the Netgroup, a research group focusing on the study of networking-related technologies.
Riccardo Sisto holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering and a PhD in System and Computer Engineering, both received from the Turin Polytechnic.
Riccardo Sisto’s current research focuses on formal methods applied to distributed systems, networks, and cybersecurity. His main contributions in the cybersecurity area refer to network security automation and security protocol verification. He is the author or co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications. He was awarded 2 research grants from Cisco Systems, and he has been involved in several EU-funded research projects.
At the Turin Polytechnic, Riccardo Sisto is a teacher of courses on Distributed Systems Programming, Formal Languages and Compilers, and Security Verification and Testing in the Master’s Degrees in Computer Engineering and Cybersecurity.
Time: 20.10.2025 at 16:00 – 17:30 (coffee and buns served from 15:30). The lecture will be approximately 60 minutes, after which there will be time for questions.
Venue: Lumituuli auditorium, Dipoli, Aalto University (Otakaari 24, Espoo).
Registration: The event is open to all and free of charge but we ask you to register for the event as it will help us to estimate the number of coffee ordered, thank you!

HAIC Talk with Heidi Kuusniemi
2025-11-10 16:00 - 17:30
Resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing: the Cybersecurity Frontier of Satellite Navigation — with Heidi Kuusniemi
Lecture description: Satellite navigation systems such as GPS and Galileo and the soon emerging Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based satellite navigation constellations form the invisible geospatial backbone of our digital society. The precise positioning and timing they provide underpin transportation and logistics, communications networks, energy grids, and countless other applications and services. Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) are, however, inherently vulnerable, since their open signals can be jammed or spoofed, turning trusted time and location data into potential attack vectors. The growing prevalence of threats has made resilient Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) a critical cybersecurity frontier. This talk explores how cybersecurity principles intersect with satellite navigation across the signal, system and measurement layers. Real-world examples of jamming and spoofing incidents are presented alongside emerging countermeasures such as signal authentication, interference detection and mitigation, fault detection and exclusion (FDE), and multi-source multi-layer PNT architectures combining space-based, terrestrial and sensor inputs. The talk concludes with an outlook on Europe’s evolving geospatial initiatives including ESA’s Celeste LEO-PNT mission and Galileo’s authentication services and how they contribute to a more secure, trusted and resilient PNT ecosystem vital for e.g. critical infrastructures and autonomous systems.
About the speaker: Heidi Kuusniemi is a Professor of Wireless Systems at Tampere University, holding a joint professorship with the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute of the National Land Survey of Finland. Her research focuses on resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems, including satellite navigation interference detection and mitigation and reliable multi-system and multi-sensor navigation. Her work bridges the domains of geospatial technology, wireless systems and cybersecurity, with the goal of ensuring trustworthy positioning and situational awareness from space to Earth. Prof. Kuusniemi has led numerous national and international research and development projects on localization resilience, sensor fusion, and the space economy. She is President of the Nordic Institute of Navigation and a member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, and was named Professor of the Year 2025 by the Professors’ Union of Finland.
Time: 10.11.2025 at 16:00 – 17:30 (coffee and buns served from 15:30). The lecture will be approximately 60 minutes, after which there will be time for questions.
Venue: Lumituuli auditorium, Dipoli, Aalto University (Otakaari 24, Espoo).
Registration: The event is open to all and free of charge but we ask you to register for the event as it will help us to estimate the number of coffee ordered, thank you!

HAIC Talk with Markus Miettinen: The Cornucopia of security research is stuffed with AI
2026-02-23 16:00 - 17:30
Lecture description: The increasing public interest towards AI-based applications, especially LLM chatbots, has caused an onslaught of AI-based functionalities in various devices and systems. Many vendors hope to reap benefits from AI algorithms’ capabilities to ingest and reproduce enormous amounts of information and their ability to quickly process data based on patterns taught to them during model training. The promise of potential increased performance and the ability to provide entirely novel user experiences has caused many system designers and device vendors to wholeheartedly adopt AI as an essential component in their system and solution designs. However, while offering potential benefits, the introduction of this new technology to systems also introduces potential new attack surfaces and security vulnerabilities that have been mostly overlooked by system vendors so far. Researchers and practitioners are only beginning to study and understand what it really means from a security point of view to have data-driven AI-based reasoning and decision making as an integral part of system designs.
In this talk I will review challenges that arise with regard to security through the introduction of AI algorithms in real-world systems. I will sketch an outline for a research roadmap for addressing and mitigating security threats against AI components and discuss what it would take to develop system designs that are more resilient against various types of AI misuse.
About the speaker: Dr.-Ing. Markus Miettinen obtained his M.Sc. in computer science in 2002 from the University of Helsinki, after which he pursued a career in industrial research at the Nokia Research Center in Helsinki, Finland and Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2012, he joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology (SIT) in Darmstadt, Germany and in 2013 he joined the System Security Lab of the Department of Computer Science at the Technical University of Darmstadt from where he obtained his doctorate in 2018. From 2023 to 2025 he was Professor of IT Security at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. Since October 2025 he has been full professor of cybersecurity at the University of Jyväskylä. He is also a member of the leadership team of the Finnish Center of Expertise in Cybersecurity FICEC.
His research interests are centered around IoT security, the use of data analysis and AI in security applications, as well as security of AI algorithms, in particular the security implications of the increasingly ubiquitous deployment of AI in various systems. He has a big interest in fostering the transfer of research results to real-world applications, and is inventor or co-inventor in 20 granted international patents in eleven patent families.
Time: 23.2.2026 at 16:00 – 17:30 (coffee and buns served from 15:30). The lecture will be approximately 60 minutes, after which there will be time for questions.
Venue: Lumituuli auditorium, Dipoli, Aalto University (Otakaari 24, Espoo).
Registration: The event is open to all and free of charge, but we ask you to register for the event as it will help us to estimate the number of coffee ordered, thank you!
