CYBER-DEFENCE FELLOWSHIPS: Vaclav Zvonicek

• How did you find out about the CYD Fellowships and what motivated you to apply?

Early this year, I started looking for a master thesis project on network security that would allow me to further expand my knowledge in this area. When I searched for 'network security projects', I saw various projects available on the CYD campus website. Luckily for me, Dr. Roland Meier, my current supervisor, had proposed such a project that perfectly suited me. He also shared with me during our interview that I had a chance to apply for the CYD Fellowship, which would, in addition to other benefits, grant me living allowances throughout the 6 months. My main motivation to apply though was to become more visible to the cyber security community through my role as a fellow.

• What was your CYD Fellowship project about?

The goal was to build upon the work of a previous CYD Campus Fellow, Patrick Louis Aldover, who deployed a secure wide-area network over cloud providers. In particular, my task was to analyse the connection security of a remote client to the wide-area network with regards to Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and to enhance the network with SCION compatibility; this future Internet architecture that prevents several types of attacks to which the Internet's famous BGP is vulnerable.

• What were the advantages of conducting your master thesis project at the CYD Campus?

Firstly, I had a great supervisor, Dr. Roland Meier, who had a profound understanding of the topic and thus was of great help to me. Secondly, I indulged myself in the comfort of working on-site in the campus, which was especially nice during the hot summer days. Lastly, I had a chance to participate in some events I wouldn't otherwise have known about; one of them even landed me another internship opportunity after I finish my master’s thesis.

• Did you as a child dream of working in cyber-defence?

No, I developed my interest in cyber-defence first during my university studies; however I did become interested in programming and mathematics, namely algebra that underlies many cryptographic concepts, at quite an early age.

• What is driving you to pursue research in cyber-defence?

While I do like that cyber security combines technical and mathematical skills, I mainly enjoy its global impact and importance, and I am confident that this area is one that humans will keep being responsible for in the future. I am also motivated by the great responsibility of guaranteeing security for other people.

• What is the most important lesson you have learned in your scientific career so far?

I have learned how vital it is to organise my work and myself to prevent the time-consuming trial-and-error approach and procrastination. Nevertheless, this is a lengthy process, and I can't say I have entirely mastered it yet.

• What are you most proud of in your career to date?

This project; I think it is a nice culmination of my hard work and dedication to studying computer science since I applied basically everything I had learned at university. It also further cemented my interest in cyber security.

• Outside the lab, what do you enjoy doing most?

A combination of doing sports, e.g. swimming and tennis, and playing the piano; the latter was especially useful during the more stressful and difficult parts of my master thesis work.

• What were your expectations about the CYD Fellowships?

That I would have a great guidance and support throughout the 6 months of work. Although I didn’t use the opportunity to meet with other CYD peers as much as I had planned, the Fellowship met all my prior expectations.

• Could you share some tips with future applicants who are considering applying for the CYD Fellowships?

I have a rather general advice, which also helped me get accepted to ETH Zurich: become clear about what you would like to do in the next few months or years, start preparing for as much as you can in advance, and take the advantage of meeting cyber security peers (more than I did in the past).