News and events

▲ 7. February 2026: Participation in UTmessan 2026

Members and students of the Frostbyte lab successfully participated in UTmessan 2026, Iceland’s leading annual IT event. UTmessan brings together national stakeholders and presents current developments, trends, and innovation in information technology, aiming to increase the awareness and interest in technical disciplines and computer science.

Conference Day – Presentation on AI in Cybersecurity

On Conference Day (February 6th), Hans P. Reiser presented the talk “AI in Cybersecurity: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?”, which covered different aspects of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. While AI provides powerful tools for automation, large-scale data analysis, and efficient log filtering, it can likewise be misused maliciously, as demonstrated for instance by the increase of LLM-assisted phishing. The talk emphasized that AI cannot replace human expertise in cybersecurity. Skilled specialists remain needed to understand, interpret, and explain.

Many visitors at the Frostbyte booth on Tech Day

On public Tech Day, February 7, Frostbyte hosted an interactive booth that attracted many families and visitors. Several hands-on demonstrations were presented, allowing participants to learn more about cyberattacks and cybersecurity, to discuss with the students and to try out cybersecurity tasks and games to learn about exemplary attacks and responses.

Visitors could try a password-cracking game designed to demonstrate password security weaknesses, interact with a phishing simulation, and experience a “bad USB” demonstration that showed how malicious devices can compromise systems. These activities were very well received by both children and adults.

A big-screen slide show presented the Frostbyte project, the new Frostkastið podcast and the Cybersecurity student club. It raised a lot of interest in information and further discussion. Overall, the partcipation in UTmessan was very successful for the Frostbyte group.
▼ 9. January 2026: Frostbyte is now a Research Centre at RU

We are happy to announce that Frostbyte has been established as a Research Center at Reykjavik University. The application was approved by the Reykjavik University Executive Council on December 9th, 2025, and the whole Frostbyte group celebrated the implementation at the Department of Computer Science on January 9th with a special cake! We want to thank everyone involved in this achievement, especially our Department Chair, also for donating the celebration cake!
▼ 12. November 2025: Miguel Faísco defended his Master's thesis

Congratulations to Miguel Faísco! Frostbyte congratulates lab member Miguel Faísco on his outstanding completion of the Master of Science degree. His defense took place at FCUL, University of Lisbon on November 12th, where he presented his work to the graduation committee. Live-streaming of the public presentation was followed by members of the Frostbyte team at Reykjavik University.

His thesis “Towards real-time malware classification through honeypot analysis” was supervised by Ibéria Medeiros, Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Sciences, Faculdade de Ciências, University of Lisbon and Hans P. Reiser, Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Sciences at Reykjavik University.

Miguel is now starting his PhD at FCUL in Lisbon in cooperation with the Frostbyte lab.

Miguel, we are looking forward to keep on working with you!
▼ 27. September 2025: The Frostbyte cybersecurity lab showcased at Vísindavaka 2025

On September 27th, members of the Frostbyte team presented exciting research projects to the public at the 20th Vísindavaka science fair at Laugardalshöll in Reykjavík.

Visitors who wanted to learn more about cyberattacks and cybersecurity research were invited to learn about the groups’ current projects and had the opportunity to directly observe and try out exemplary attacks and responses. For instance, the effect of a bad USB could be witnessed. This was very popular with the kids. A prepared USB device could be plugged in and directly tested with a laptop to see its interaction based on malicious software. A slide show explaining a honeypot, a network to trap and analyze malicious attacks, was presented on a screen. The visitors could also watch a honeypot trap running live on a computer next to it. There was a lot of interest in the projects presented and many discussions on cybersecurity evolved during the event.
▼ 27. August 2025: Connect4Cyber – Brokerage and Info Day, Helsinki

Reykjavik University participated in the Connect4Cyber – Brokerage and Info Day, in Helsinki.

The event brought together cybersecurity actors from Finland and across Europe to explore current Digital Europe and Horizon Europe funding calls, exchange project ideas, and form new international collaborations. With a strong focus on cybersecurity for the health sector, post-quantum cryptography, and opportunities for SMEs, the event provided a valuable platform for aligning Icelandic priorities with emerging European research directions.

The Frostbyte lab presented a project pitch on responsible AI in cybersecurity for SMEs and promoted NCC-IS as Iceland’s central contact point for EU-level cybersecurity collaboration, inviting potential partners to engage with Icelandic researchers on upcoming project opportunities.
▼ 6. August 2025: Digital Identity Management Workshop

The Digital Identity Management Workshop took place at Reykjavik University on Wednesday, August 6th, 2025 from 9:00am to 15:00pm in room M208

Computer science students from Reykjavik University, researchers, and professionals interested in digital identity management met at Reykjavik University on August 6th to learn about and discuss critical topics in the field. Digital identity management is essential for minimizing risks of data breaches and cyber threats while meeting regulatory requirements and improving process efficiency; however, in practice it remains an extremely difficult problem to solve at scale.

Professor Jacky Mallett (Reykjavik University) welcomed participants and gave an overview of limits on information scaling in networks through the Fischer Consensus Problem. This was followed by a talk by Jonathan E. Hochman (Yale University) on the challenges of practical digital identity infrastructure and current research on potential solution approaches. Havard Mathisen (PwC Norway) introduced the FLP (Fischer–Lynch–Paterson) theorem, providing a practical perspective on the theory. Professor Hans P. Reiser (Reykjavik University) presented the development and future of electronic IDs in Europe.

After lunch, the keynote speech was delivered by Professor Michael J. Fischer (Yale University) on his contribution to one of the most seminal papers in distributed computing: Impossibility of Asynchronous Distributed Consensus (FLP) – A Retrospective. The final panel discussion, moderated by Professor Alice Fischer (University of New Haven), explored information network scaling and consensus, challenges of practical digital identity infrastructure, and digital identity management more broadly.

Overall, the workshop enabled a fruitful exchange of knowledge, ideas, and research and was a full success.

Follow this link to view the program.
▼ 23. May 2025: Official opening of the Frostbyte Lab to students and best student presentation awards at the Frostbyte workshop

The Frostbyte Cybersecurity Workshop, held on May 23rd, 2025, marked the official opening of the Frostbyte Lab to students. The Frostbyte Lab is a joint initiative between Reykjavík University and the University of Iceland.

More information on this milestone of the Frostbyte lab opening can be found in this PDF document. Reykjavik University has also a news piece on the lab opening in Icelandic and English.

The event brought together students and faculty from both institutions for a day of engaging talks, discussions, and networking centered on cybersecurity research: Programme

The workshop highlights included several outstanding student presentations which provided impressive insights into current projects and topics. Two student presentations, with Birgir Sigurðsson from the University of Iceland presenting “Accidental pentest – why not to code with AI”, and Marteinn Lundi Kjartansson together with Emilía Maidland from Reykjavík University presenting “Scan Iceland: Vᛟlva - Architecture and Implementation of a Continuous National Network Scanner”, received the Best Student Presentation award with a book prize. Round table discussions with mixed groups raised various future research and project ideas, ranging from, e.g., research into security of air traffic control, drones and potential for malicious use to IT security of schools, research on cybersecurity teaching and awareness in schools and quantum encryption in healthcare.

The Frostbyte Lab, established with support through EU funding via the NCC-IS (Eyvör) and Defend Iceland grants, was formally introduced during the course of the workshop which finished with a tour of the Frostbyte Lab facilities at Reykjavík University.

Group photo of participants

Best Student Presentation award winners. From left to right: Prof. Helmut Neukirchen, Student Presentation award winner Birgir Sigurðsson (both University of Iceland), Student Presentation award winners Marteinn Lundi Kjartansson and Emilía Maidland from Reykjavík University.
▼ 11. April 2025: Frostbyte lab at the EDCC conference

RU represented the Frostbyte Lab at the EDCC 2025 conference, a leading European venue for research on dependable and secure computing. The participation aimed to strengthen collaboration across Europe and promote joint engagement in future EU research and innovation projects.

Student research from the Frostbyte Lab on a novel high-interaction honeypot architecture with integrated real-time analysis, which enables more accurate machine-learning-based malware classification, was presented in a talk by lab member Miguel Faísco. This work was supported by the cybersecurity research and education infrastructure of the Frostbyte Lab. The project and the lab were also highlighted in a poster, which received the EDCC Distinguished Poster Award.
▼ 8. February 2025: Frostbyte cybersecurity lab at UT messan 2025

The Frostbyte lab is the joint cybersecurity lab of the security researchers and teachers at University of Iceland and Reykjavik University. It is co-funded by the Icelandic government and the EU/ECCC. The official opening to experts is on Friday, 7 February 2025, and to the general public on Saturday, 8 February 2025, 11:00-16:00, in Harpa at the IT fair UT messan. Both University of Iceland and Reykjavik University have at the exhibition day for the public a booth on the 2nd floor of Harpa where you can learn more about the lab. The lab is open to interested parties for their cybersecurity research: please contact people at Frostbyte lab if you have a cybersecurity use case. For example, we offer to do a security scan if your organisation that has computers facing the internet.