‘Fostering synergies between our consulting and research activities’ Interview by Martina Cappuccio from Lëtzebuerger Gemengen (LG) with Carlo Harpes (Managing Director), Arash Atashpendar (HoD RDI) and Matthieu Aubigny (Senior IT Security Consultant) from itrust consulting s.à r.l. about the new Research and Development strategy. itrust consulting took advantage of the period of confinement to rethink its Research and Innovation department and review its priorities. With a new manager at its head, the department intends to build a research strategy of its own, independent of the financing of isolated projects. Carlo Harpes, founder and Managing Director of itrust consulting, Matthieu Aubigny, Security Consultant, and Arash Atashpendar, Head of Research, Development and Innovation (RDI), tell us about the company’s flagship research projects. What changes are taking place within itrust consulting? Carlo Harpes: Our company has always put its resources at the service of projects for which it found funding without having its own research strategy. Today, we would like to make a paradigm shift and organise our activities according to the priorities we identify by observing the flaws that exist in our modern infrastructures. We have therefore recruited a new head for the department of Research, Development and Innovation, Arash Atashpendar, in order to build a research strategy of our own. We will try to release funds, mainly from the FNR, to finance our team as a whole and no longer just certain isolated projects. The aim is also to supervise more doctoral students on an ongoing basis, as a university institute would do. At the same time, we strive to promote synergies between our consulting and research activities. Our strength lies in the close cooperation between these two departments. Researchers know that their work will be used in the field by their collaborators in consulting, just as they know that the turnover generated by our consulting activities allows us to invest in research in order to update our tools and skills. Matthieu Aubigny, you have handed over to Arash Atashpendar at the head of the RDI department. What are the reasons for this change? Matthieu Aubigny: This change came at a significant moment when the projects I was leading were coming to an end and others were evolving more in Arash’s area of specialisation, that of quantum cryptography and algorithmics. As for me, I had more and more work to do at the consultancy level, so this transition came about naturally…. Read more »

itrust consulting referenced for an evaluation of progress in quantum cryptography in an IBM Qiskit report on simulation frameworks for quantum key distribution (QKD), August 19, 2020.

itrust consulting renewed the certification of its Information Security Management System (ISMS) and extended it with the compliance of its Privacy Information Management System (PIMS), valid for three years as of July 9, 2020. itrust consulting is the first LU company certified ISO/IEC 27001, under OLAS accreditation, for a scope including all ISO/IEC 27701 controls to protect privacy. The new certification scope statement is the following: ‘Both the Information Security Management system (ISMS) and the Privacy Information Management System (PIMS) of itrust consulting cover all business services provided by itrust consulting to its customers as well as all assets owned or managed, including all customer related information, personal identifiable information, and services such as information security and computer security consulting, auditing, R&D, training, ICT, CERT, and pseudonymization; in accordance with the Statement of Applicability, version 3.4 of 5th of June, 2020 including all controls of ISO/IEC 27001 and 27701.’.

Traditionally, itrust consulting continued its sponsorship for the 15th edition of ‘HACK.LU’ (22.-24/10/2019).