CyberExcellence

The CyberExcellence project started in January 2022 under the umbrella of the CyberWal initiative and is funded by the Walloon region. It aims to position Wallonia as a major player in cybersecurity on the national and international map by developing a core framework allowing the implementation of solutions based on practical and thoughtful cybersecurity with a competitive advantage.
Among the different axes addressed by the project, Axis 1 aims to secure the system before its deployment through testing approaches. These approaches will be based on techniques derived from artificial intelligence in order, on the one hand, to predict the interesting test cases based on knowledge of the system, its history and the external components used and, on the other hand, to efficiently explore the space of possible states to find interesting new test cases. For example, machine learning algorithms to detect potential flaws and vulnerabilities from the source code, its evolution and the APIs used, and evolutionary algorithms to generate tests and test data (search-based testing algorithms, fuzzing, etc.). These actions can be carried out in collaboration with the ARIAC Artificial Intelligence project funded by the Walloon region. Results will be produced for the two broad classes of cybersecurity testing, (1) cybersecurity functional testing and (2) penetration testing.
More information on the CyberExcellence project (No. 2110186), funded by the Public Service of Wallonia (SPW Recherche) are available on the CyberWal website.

Xavier Devroey
Professor of Software Engineering
My research goal is to to ease software testing by exploring new paths to achieve a high level of automation for test case design, generation, selection, and prioritization. My main research interests include search-based and model-based software testing, test suite augmentation, DevOps, and variability-intensive systems.
Posts
Dans un contexte où le développement logiciel évolue rapidement, souvent sous l’impulsion du monde industriel, il est essentiel pour les institutions d’enseignement supérieur de maintenir un lien étroit avec les pratiques professionnelles. Cette connexion permet d’adapter les programmes de formation aux réalités du terrain et de garantir la pertinence des compétences transmises aux étudiant·e·s.
Last November 2023, I took part in the Shonan seminar on the use of DevOps approaches for cyber-physical systems. It was an intense but interesting week, with 30 researchers from Japan, America and Europe, experts in software engineering, DevOps approaches and cyber-physical systems. In addition to the connections between research teams and future collaborations, the seminar helped to define a common vision of what a DevOps approach for cyber-physical systems is. This vision will be embodied in a book, to be written in the months following the seminar.
A bitter cold, but a good atmosphere for an intense week! The presentations of the CyberWal in Galaxia Winterschool continued all week from December 13 to 16, 2022 at the Eurospace center in Redu. The CyberWal consortium brings together researchers working on cybersecurity within the universities of the Walloon-Brussels Federation and accredited research centers.



















