Cybernetica

Cybernetica AS (CYB) is a private research and development company, original equipment  manufacturer and solutions provider active in the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). It was established in 1997 during reorganization of the Institute of Cybernetics (IOC) of the Estonian Academy of Sciences. Its total number of employees is about 100. The main activity areas are information security systems and services, large-scale information systems, and marine navigation systems. All the areas are supported by basic and applied research. Activities in the field of information security started in 1992 with establishing the Information Technology  Department at the IOC. The company became the primary contractor for the national Information Security program. Since 1992, the information security systems department has been rapidly developing and currently involves around 60 full- or part-time researchers and system engineers (including eight PhD-s). Cybernetica currently employs eight senior researchers with PhD degrees and, on average, fifteen years of experience (counted from the award of a degree giving access to PhD studies). Cybernetica is also employing one postdoctoral researcher and several early-career researchers. The latter are also PhD students in either University of Tartu or Tallinn University of Technology. 


Principal investigators of Cybernetica


Peeter Laud received his MSc in computer science in 1998 from University of Tartu and PhD in engineering (Doktor-Ingeneur) in 2002 from University of Saarland, faculty of computer science. He has worked in Cybernetica as a researcher, senior researcher and research director since 1998. Currently he also holds a part-time position as a professor in Tartu University, Institute of Computer Science. Research areas: applied cryptography, static program analysis. From 1997 to (mainly) 2001 he mainly focused on digital time-stamping and non-repudiation. From 2000 on, his main research direction has been the cryptographically correct analysis of programs and protocols containing cryptographic primitives. He also has experience in the static analysis of dynamic data structures. He has published in leading venues of security and programming languages research, including Crypto, ACM CCS, IEEE S&P, ETAPS, POPL, received best paper awards from these venues, as well as served in the programme committees of these and other conferences. Peeter Laud has participated in several FP6/7 funded projects (AEOLUS (IST-015964), BalticTime 
(IST-027751), VirtualLife (ICT-216064), MOBIUS (IST-015905), HATS (ICT-231620)). In AEOLUS 
and BalticTime, he was the site leader of Cybernetica. He is a member of the management committee of EXCS, the Estonian Centre of Excellence in Computer Science, funded through ERDF. 

Jan Willemson received his MSc and PhD in computer science in 1998 and 2002, respectively, from University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. His current research interests are practical risk analysis of complex systems and privacy-preserving data mining. He previously worked on applications of combinatorial graph theory in time-stamping and robotics. He has participated in several Estonian e-government development activities including the Estonian Electronic Document Management Programme, risk analysis of Estonian e-voting infrastructure, and development of Estonian state middleware for secure database cross-usage X-Road. He has held teaching positions (lecturer, 2000-2004, docent, 2004-2008) at the University of Tartu. He is the leader of the SEcure VIrtuaL machines and LAnguages (SEVILLA) project, funded by DARPA through the PROCEED (PROgramming Computations on EncryptEd Data) program. 

Dan Bogdanov received his PhD in computer science in 2013 from University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. He has worked in Cybernetica since 2007 as a researcher. Dan’s research interests are related to the applicability and concrete applications of secure multiparty computation and privacy-preserving data mining. He is the technical lead of the Sharemind platform. He has participated in FP6/7 funded projects AEOLUS (IST-015964) and VirtualLife (ICT-216064), he is the site leader of Cybernetica in the latter. He contributes to standardization activities, being a co-editor of ISO 29101 (Privacy Reference Architecture)

Riivo Talviste received his MSc in information technology, specializing in high performance computing in 2011 from University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. At the moment, he is continuing his studies there as a computer science PhD student and working as a junior researcher in Cybernetica. Since 2010, he has been working on developing practical applications using the Sharemind platform. In his PhD studies, he is researching the trust issues and technical complexity of applying secure multiparty computation techniques in practice.

Liina Kamm received her MSc in computer science in 2007 from the University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. She is working as a researcher at Cybernetica and studying in the computer science PhD programme at the University of Tartu. At the moment, she is mainly researching how to carry out statistical studies on multiparty computation platforms but she is also working on a tool that makes game-based proving of cryptographic protocols less tedious. Liina has participated in an FP6 funded project COBRED (LSHB-CT-2007-037730).

Pille Pullonen received her MSc in 2013 from the Master's Programme in Security and Mobile Computing called NordSecMob. The degree was awarded jointly from University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science, and Aalto University, School of Science. Since 2012, she has been working as a protocol developer for the Sharemind platform. The focus of her work is on developing protocols that are secure in the presence of malicious adversaries. She is currently a PhD student in computer science at the University of Tartu and working as a junior researcher in Cybernetica.

Alisa Pankova received her MSc in 2013 from the University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. She is currently a PhD student in computer science at the University of Tartu and working as a junior researcher in Cybernetica. She is currently working on foundational aspects of performing various kinds of computations in a privacy-preserving manner.

Ville Sokk received his BSc in 2013 from the University of Tartu, Institute of Computer Science. Since then he has been working as a programmer in Cybernetica. He works with the Sharemind team and implements the various statistical analysis functions and tools.