BME Researchers Work Together In New Alliance On Computer System Security

Computer systems play a critical role in the information-based society: it is difficult to imagine the economy, public administration, and everyday life without them. Therefore, the reliability and security of these systems are essential requirements. Reliability ensures fault tolerance, i.e., that our systems operate at an acceptable level of service in a predictable manner, even in the event of errors. Security provides similar guarantees in the event of deliberate attacks, i.e., it protects our data and infrastructure from unauthorized access and other malicious activities.

Reliability and security are related properties, so it is worth considering them together. It makes no sense to design, build, or operate a system that is resistant to intentional attacks but not sufficiently robust against accidental errors — and vice versa.

Therefore, our computer systems must be both fault-tolerant and secure.

At the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of BME, two long-established and internationally recognized professional workshops, ftsrg and CrySyS Lab, deal with the reliability and security of computer systems. These two research groups have collaborated intensively on a number of joint projects in recent years, and other groups at the university are also conducting research on various system reliability and/or security issues.

It seemed appropriate to strengthen the dialogue between the different research groups and to facilitate opportunities for cooperation, so the leaders of CrySyS Lab and ftrsg initiated the creation of an alliance that would provide a forum for dialogue between the research groups involved and raise the profile of this important area of expertise. The alliance was named the Alliance for Dependable and Trustworthy Systems (ARDENTS).

ARDENTS is not a new organizational unit or a project consortium, but a loose alliance based purely on professional grounds between BME research groups dealing with the reliability and/or security of computer systems. Its members plan to share information about their research and discuss relevant professional issues at regular professional workshops.

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