Cybersecurity update for security research – Austria
Security research gets a cybersecurity update of five million. Euro. The security research funding programs are thus endowed with a total of 19 million euros for the first time.
The “KIRAS” and “FORTE” funding programs for security research in Austria are being upgraded. For the first time, a total of 19 million euros will flow through a five million “cyber security focus”, explained Secretary of State for Digitization Florian Tursky (ÖVP) in a press conference on Monday. This amount will also be “certainly maintained” in the coming years.
Cyber security increasingly difficult due to advances
The promotion of civil security research is handled by the research promotion agency FFG in the KIRAS program, which has been endowed with nine million euros in recent years. FORTE was last endowed with five million euros and covers the sold division. In addition, in the new call for tenders, which will run until March 17th, there will be a focus on cyber security within the framework of KIRAS with the additional five million, explains Tursky.
If you look at the technological applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) that have been made in recent years, it becomes clear that fake emails requesting personal data to be disclosed are also becoming more and more personal and therefore more difficult to recognize as “fake”. will be. For example, e-mails circulated recently that claimed to come from “FinanzOnline”.
Chatbot software as a “game changer”
With the currently hyped chatbot software ChatGPT, the progress in the text area became clear to many people for the first time. This application looks like a “game changer” in Turkey. Martin Boyer from the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT) agreed. ChatGPT could possibly “change everyday life”, according to the researcher, who sees this development as “normal technological progress”. However, one would have to scrutinize the texts generated by the software and not simply accept them, said Boyer.
The State Secretary was also convinced that the area of deepfakes in videos, image manipulation that is becoming increasingly difficult to detect, and cyber attacks on companies and authorities “will increase enormously in the next few years”. Last year, the “cybercrime sector” in Austria grew by around 30 percent. In addition to raising awareness in the population, in companies and in public administration, there is a need for an increase in research funding.
Applications track down disinformation
Research institutions, authorities and with the APA – Austria Press Agency and the ORF, two media companies have also taken on questions about the detection of fake news and co as part of the KIRAS research project “defalsif-AI”. The last project, which ended in autumn and was led by AIT, can now come up with an AI-based “toolbox”. If you give the system a text, an image or a video, it provides an assessment of whether and where it may have been edited or faked.
“Disinformation is sometimes a tough nut to crack,” concluded project manager Boyer. But the work has paid off, also because it was possible to land two more EU-funded follow-up projects. In addition to the application itself, “defalsif-AI” also has the effect that it can now be used to show media, authorities and companies what is actually possible in this area. For example, the location of many online photos can be limited to a few kilometers by the new AI, as the AIT researcher demonstrates.