On 12 October 2023, the Restena Foundation organised the sixth CyberDay.lu, the annual cybersecurity event for research and education that has returned to its original 100% face-to-face format.

Ever more participants

More than 120 attendees interested in cybersecurity issues were at the event organised in the Skip Pavilion - a building recognisable by its yellow wave-shaped roof- located on the Esch-Belval site. Besides the regular presence of BTS students from the Lycée Guillaume Kroll in Esch-sur-Alzette, the event also welcomed a group of students from the Lycée du Nord in Wiltz for the first time.

From the full room, they attended the various presentations, including the keynote speech from the Executive Director of the Ukrainian Research and Academic Network Association (URAN Association), the National Research and Education Network (NREN) operating in Ukraine. In his speech, Yevhenii Preobrazhenskyi spoke about the operation of his NREN in the extraordinary circumstances URAN is currently facing.

A variety of cybersecurity challenges

On the stage of the Skip Pavilion, there was, as usual, a succession of insights and expertise of cybersecurity specialists. For the 2023 event, the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs - Directorate of Defence, the Digital Learning Hub Luxembourg, Passbolt, Codit and Restena joined the European Commission, BEE SECURE, the Luxembourg House of Cybersecurity (the Computer Incident Response Center Luxembourg - CIRCL) and Telindus, who have been involved for several years. Together, they raised awareness and trained participants in a wide range of challenges.

• Hackers, or cybercriminals who try to collect the data, identities, and resources of Internet users, playing on their fear, greed, curiosity, pity, trust or laziness.
• Artificial intelligence, which is proving to be a powerful tool in many areas, as well as the value of data and the need to protect it from possible leaks.
• The behaviour of resident data in space and time.
• Security issues and implementation considerations for traditional authentication methods (i.e. password, SMS, Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)) and the next generation of authentication methods: the FIDO passkey standard.
• The Luxembourg Cyber Range, a controlled and interactive simulation environment run by the Directorate of Defence of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, enables organisations and individuals to get feedback on their skills and helps them to identify gaps, to improve cyber resilience. The Restena Foundation also benefited from this tool in June 2023 to analyse and adjust the online habits of its employees.
• The importance of cybersecurity training for safe surfing. Restena regularly offers training courses in the Cyber Security section of the Digital Learning Hub Luxembourg whose entire training catalogue is to be read at dlh.lu. The next training courses given by Restena engineers will take place in October and November 2023 and will focus on multi-factor authentication and the domain name system (DNS).
• The evolution of cyber threats and how the European Union is responding.

Alongside the conference, several entities took part in the exhibitor area organised for the occasion. Among the various stands, attendees were able to get their unused hard drives safely destroyed.