ELTE AND OTP BANK ESTABLISHED A CYBER SECURITY LAB

At the opening ceremony of the laboratory held on 6 March, Rector László Borhy emphasised in his welcome speech that Eötvös Loránd University has been able to grow and progress as a research and higher education institution over centuries because it has always been capable of renewal and open to social needs and innovation. The collaboration between ELTE and OTP Bank nicely illustrates this, not only because it reflects how industrial needs arise in education and research, but also because, thanks to the engagement of the Faculty of Informatics and the Faculty of Law, the Cyber Lab (KIBERLAB)

makes good use of the innovative potential inherent in interdisciplinary collaborations.

“The importance of cyber security can hardly be overstated. The assessment and management of cyber risks are among the most important tasks of corporate life today. It is, therefore, no longer merely an issue of IT security but should also form an integral part of the business strategy of organisations, which is why we considered it important to involve even the youngest programmers in the research of these areas and to incorporate the findings into our developments,” said Gábor Bucsek, director of informatics and bank security at OTP Bank.

Tamás Kozsik, dean of the Faculty of Informatics, said that the collaborations of the faculty with its industrial partners represent great added value for all the actors involved. The establishment of the ELTE–OTP Cyber Lab is also a major step on this path inasmuch as it provides innovative solutions in the field of cyber security and financial protection systems relying on the knowledge base offered by the Faculty of Informatics. However, the real value of the strategic cooperation model transcends the fulfilment of its corporate R&D&I assignment since the students of the Faculty of Informatics also take part in the development of the solutions. Consequently, they can gain unique corporate experience and practical skills during their studies. We expect that

a whole series of master’s theses and doctoral dissertations will be written on the topics researched at the Cyber Lab.

Additionally, the broadening of the professional horizons of university researchers and the publication of top-class papers can also be predicted, which is a non-negligible benefit of the cooperation.

In the second semester of the present academic year, eighteen students are engaged in eleven research topics explored in the research laboratory. These include the development and validation of cyber security methods for identifying phishing and the security investigations of large language model (LLM) systems using artificial intelligence. The researched fields cover today’s most exciting IT challenges, such as phishing prevention, the use of artificial intelligence in the field of cyber security, the safety considerations of large language models, post-quantum cryptography, as well as security issues related to the use of open source penetration testing tools. “It is not only the ELTE Faculty of Informatics and OTP Bank that can benefit from the targeted results but also the entire society of Hungary,” said Attila Kovács, professor of the ELTE Faculty of Informatics and the supervisor of the Cyber Lab, referring to the professional objectives of the laboratory.