2nd funding round of Cybersecurity grants for Icelandic SME companies

Helmut Neukirchen, 20. January 2025

After a successful first round of Cybersecurity grants for Icelandic SME companies, Rannís
Icelandic Smaller and Middle-size Enterprises (SMEs) can now for a second time apply for cybersecurity-related funding. The call topics are the same as last time:

  • strengthening cybersecurity culture and awareness,
  • efficient education, research and development,
  • secure digital services and innovation,
  • stronger law enforcement, defense and national security,
  • effective response to incidents, and
  • strong infrastructure, technology and legal framework.

This is in the context of Eyvör – the National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre of Iceland (NCC-IS). See also the official web page of Eyvör NCC-IS.

Horizon 2020 Centre of Excellence for Research on AI- and Simulation-Based Engineering at Exascale (RAISE) has six results from University of Iceland recognised as a 'key innovator' on the EU Innovation Radar website.

Helmut Neukirchen, 15. January 2025

It is a great honour that six results from the EU Horizon 2020-funded Centre of Excellence for Research on AI- and Simulation-Based Engineering at Exascale (RAISE) result from University of Iceland were recognised by the EU as a 'key innovator' on the EU Innovation Radar website.

An example is LAMEC ( Load AI Modules, Environments and Containers) that generates High-Performance Computing (HPC) job scripts. While job scripts are not rocket science, they are different for each HPC system and, in particular for newcomers, cumbersome to create. Therefore, LAMEC eases this with a few mouse-clicks using a web UI.

University of Iceland was involved in CoE RAISE and contributed to following results that are listed as innovations:

Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) v4 has been released

Helmut Neukirchen, 14. January 2025

In late 2024, version 4 of the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) has been released. While this is not a textbook to teach Software Engineering, it covers the state of the Software Engineering knowledge, i.e. this is some sort of curriculum. I was one of the reviewers and can only recommend to download SWEBOK v4: it is valuable not only for teachers, but for everyone who wants to get a quick overview on a particular Software Engineering topic.

Information meeting on the courses of the joint cybersecurity master's programme.

Helmut Neukirchen, 13. January 2025

On Monday, 13.1.2025, 16:00, room M105 at Reykjavik University there will be an information meeting on the joint cybersecurity master's programme and cysec courses being offered at University of Iceland and Reykjavik University.

You can find more info here: https://uni.hi.is/helmut/cybersecurity/ -- there also the presented slides will be made available.

Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect VPN client on Debian Bookworm

Helmut Neukirchen, 19. December 2024

To install a Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect VPN client on Debian Bookworm, the following should in principle be sufficient

apt install openconnect network-manager-openconnect network-manager-openconnect-gnome

However, this did not work with KDE/Plasma. I then tried logging in with Gnome as Desktop Environment and I got once shown the SSO (with MFA) web interface inside the the Openconnect window, but without further success, i.e. without establishing the VPN connection.

Then, I downloaded from the assets at https://github.com/yuezk/GlobalProtect-openconnect the most recent amd64 deb:
https://github.com/yuezk/GlobalProtect-openconnect/releases/download/v2.3.9/globalprotect-openconnect_2.3.9-1_amd64.deb
and installed a missing dependency using apt install libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 and then installed the downloaded deb.

I tried the graphical client (trial version working for 10 days only), but that did anyway not work. However, then the command line version finally worked:
sudo -E gpclient connect vpn.hi.is
It opens (probably using libwebkit2gtk that Debian had installed) a graphical Window for the SSO/MFA. Note that I had to re-run that command a couple of times until it finally worked.

Cybersecurity research centre (rannsóknarsetrur í netöryggisfræðum) will get funded with 67.3 m.kr. by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Innovation

Helmut Neukirchen, 18. December 2024

Reykjavik University, University of Iceland, and University of Akureyri and applied together for funding in order to establish a joint Cybersecurity research centre. The Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation announced that the thre universities will together get for the project Rannsóknarsetur um netöryggisfræði get 67.3 million ISK funding over 2 years from the university collaboration fund (Samstarf háskóla). This is a continuation of a established collaboration that created the M.Sc. cybersecurity specialisations/emphasis that received previously 2 years of funding.

However, we envisaged a significantly higher grant and with that, the idea was to use the grant to introduce a new Ph.D. program, co-funding two Ph.D. student positions, to hold community engagement activities, to organise a "Defend the Flag" contest, and to create undergraduate and M.Sc research opportunities. Now, with the lower funding, we need to adjust our vision for the Cybersecurity research centre.

The grant will also be used as co-funding for cybersecurity Digital Europe Programme projects that are funded by the EU, however only at a 50% funding rate, so that the ministry funding is needed to provide part of the co-funding.

As we will have soon a new government in Iceland, we can expect that the ministries will get re-organised and we have to see what this means for this funding.

Crossover Office Wine on Debian 12 Bookworm

Helmut Neukirchen, 16. December 2024

While I had never problems using Crossover Office on Debian, a fresh install on a fresh Debian 12 Bookworm revealed that 32 bit dynamic libraries were missing -- I got a message like:


Can't exec "bin/wineloader": No such file or directory at cxoffice/bin/wine line 1310.
wine:error: unable to start 'cxoffice/bin/wineloader': No such file or directory

To fix that, run:

cxoffice/bin/cxfix --auto

That should add the missing 32 bit libraries.

To check in addition for any other missing libraries: In the running crossover GUI:
Help -> System Information
to see if you are still missing any library. And indeed, still I needed to install apt install libcapi20-3 libosmesa6.

See also https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general?t=26;msg=215738

USB C to M.2 enclosures/chipsets

Helmut Neukirchen, 14. December 2024

Just for the record: I have two different USB C to NVMe enclosures with different chipsets, one is crap, one is great:

  • Crap: Icy box IB-1817M-C31 with with JMicron JMS583 PCIe-USB Bridge Controller chipset: read stalls (not so much when writing, though), no S.M.A.R.T. support, no M.2 SATA support -- AVOID!
  • Sabrent EC-SNVE 10Gbps Tool-Free Enclosure with Realtek RTL9210 chipset: performant, with S.M.A.R.T. support, supports both M.2 SATA and NVMe, and the tool-free approach (i.e. no screws) is also nice, even though the case is smaller, it gets less hot than the other one (which could either mean that the heat transfer from the SSD to the case is bad, or that the bridge controller chipset gets less hot) -- RECOMMENDED!

But it seems that firmware versions matter a lot. But Sabrent has only an updating tool for Windows, maybe these images can be used as input for some Linux-based tool?

Cybersecurity at Þjóðarspegillinn 2024 social science conference

Helmut Neukirchen, 12. November 2024

On Friday, 1 November 2024, we had a we have a presentation (in Icelandic) on Cybersecurity at Þjóðarspegillinn 2024, the University of Iceland social science conference. This is to raise cybersecurity awareness, see also the NCC-IS and ICEDEF projects.

European Researchers' Night 2024 / Vísindavaka 2024

Helmut Neukirchen, 27. September 2024

On Saturday, 28. September 2024, 13:00-18:00, there is Vísindavaka 2024, the Icelandic family-friendly-during-daytime edition of European Researchers' Night 2024 at Laugardalshöll.

The Computer Science department of University of Iceland has a booth there, showcasing some of their research:

  • Cybersecurity: Eyvör NCC-IS, the National Coordination Centre Iceland for Cybersecurity. The Computer Science department of University of Iceland is part of Eyvör NCC-IS and we will show three pieces to raise awareness:
    • Has my user info (in the worst case: my password) been leaked? Look up who else owns your login data: https://haveibeenpwned.com
      Note: if your data shows up there to have been leaked, then this is not your fault, but the fault of the website that was storing your data in an insecure manner and you should change your password at that website (also check whether the password has been leaked or only, e.g., your email adress). However, it is your fault if you use the same password for multiple websites: should your password leak from one website, criminals will try that password on other websites and will have success if you use the same password there. Use different passwords for different services. Even better: use multifactor authentication, i.e. not just a password (that can be easily leaked), but in addition something that can be less easily stolen, such as your phone: an authenticator app running on it, an SMS sent to your phone number, or the Icelandic digital ID on your SIM card.
    • An online quiz on how good you are at identifying phishing emails, i.e. emails trying to trick you into providing information, e.g. passwords: https://cybersecuritymonth.eu/quiz (Note: solutions not provided online -- you need to visit us to get hints where you were wrong and where you were right!)
    • A LEGO model of Iceland representing critical infrastructure that is subject to attacks. Each time, a service on our Internet-connected computer is attacked via the Internet from anywhere in the world, a light goes off. So when all Iceland turns dark in our Lego model, then you know that all of our services are currently being attacked at the same time. We use just a dummy sample server, but in fact, it could be your computer or a power plant that is attacked. True Blinkenlights - next time, we should do it using the lights in the glass front of Harpa concert hall.


  • A 3D scanner that scans the shape of your ear: used in CoE RAISE in order to find with AI out how the shape of your ear influences how you hear from different directions.
  • Quantum computing: a new piece to show, therefore no photos yet -- you really need to come and see!

See you at Laugardalshöll!