The Summer School will focus on Smart Contracts and their nearly unlimited use-cases in the financial and public sector. Smart contracts belong to the most rapidly growing aspect of the world of Blockchains. This phenomenon attracts great attention from researchers but also from the business community. An essential part of smart contract application is operational security, including security incidents handling. Smart contracts allow running contract code transparently for all parties, without the need for a centralised authority.
One of the smart contract applications is the issuance of digital assets, so-called tokens, serving as fundraising fuel for Initial Coin Offerings. ICOs bring a new easy and bureaucracy-less way for start-ups to raise considerable funds from crowds with incredible speed. However, the technology hides a dark side in the form of speculative scams, hardly distinguishable from genuine fundraising activities. Evaluation audit of ICOs associated with the underlying security of smart contracts is a complex issue requiring many efforts.
The participants will learn how to use one of the most popular blockchain frameworks, Ethereum, a prominent smart contract platform, and its dominant programming language, Solidity, with emphasis on security issues and cyber security concerns. Also, the student will gain insights into how decentralised finances are connected to ransomware and threats from cybercriminals. On top of that, the participants will understand proactive security measures based on network monitoring and security incident handling based on machine learning.
Main Topics
Automotive cyber security
Lecture on various levels of vehicle autonomy, communication between smart vehicles and infrastructure required. Ways this communication is vulnerable, methods for securing it and how to minimise potential for serious accidents.
Cyber security in IoT
Lecture on security and privacy of data sent and received by many useful and innocent looking devices in everyday life. Workshop on improving student's understanding of how their data is gathered and processed.
Cyber security awareness based on machine learning
Cyber security awareness is a fundamental pillar of an organization's security. As part of this, the organisation collects information from detection and surveillance systems, evaluates it, and performs adequate responses.
Fraudulent systems, especially honeypots (traps for attackers), are a significant element in monitoring. The lecture will present how to deploy these technologies and use them in more complex solutions. The use of different machine learning methods can help to understand situational awareness better. In the lecture, we will show how it is possible to detect anomalous behaviour and predict the development of security awareness.
Incident response and digital forensics based on machine learning
The class will discuss organisations' cyber security from the point of view of the incident handling process and digital forensics.
Accomodation
The Summer School will be held in the Campus out of the center of Bratislava. The school venue is easily accessible via tram from the center. Accommodation can be provided by the Hotel Saffron. Local school organisers will provide you with all support and info you may need.
