Dr Evgeni Moyakine wins Jantina Tammes School Early Career Researcher Prize

On 19 June 2024, the Jantina Tammes School of Digital Society, Technology and AI (JTS) celebrated its birthday that concluded with the presentation of the JTS Early Career Researcher Prize. The prize was awarded to five winners, including associate professor of IT law Evgeni Moyakine.

Also awarded the bonus prize

All five winners will receive €2,500 and 300 hours of technical support offered by the Centre for Information Technology of the UG. In addition, the winners had to pitch their proposed research projects to the audience to earn the bonus prize of €1,000.

The jury highlighted the quality of Moyakine’s pitch, his passion for his research and its undeniable significance in the modern digitalized and interconnected world and awarded him and Catherine Sibert – Assistant Professor of Human Computer Collaboration from the Faculty of Science and Engineering – the bonus prize.

Investigation into malicious cyber attacks

Evgeni’s project is entitled ‘Command and Control under the Cyber Radar: Untangling the Complexities of Attribution of State-Driven Cyber Operations through Comprehensive Expert Collaboration’. In his proposal, he recognizes the fact that malicious cyber-attacks currently constitute a major and constantly evolving threat to the Netherlands and other European countries. This can be explained by the extensive use of AI by hackers often operating under a certain degree of state control and by severe geopolitical tensions resulting in the increasing number of state-supported offensive cyber operations.

Unfortunately, at the moment it is highly difficult, if not impossible, to legally attribute these operations constituting violations of international law (such as the customary prohibition of the use of force) to states hiding behind private hackers’ collectives or individual cybercriminals.

Building on the findings of his previous research project funded by the Groningen University Fund and leveraging the expertise and connections cultivated over the past years, Moyakine will organize a specialized activating workshop for both legal and technical experts from this specific field. The planned event aims to facilitate comprehensive expert collaboration contributing to a more resilient cybersecurity community.

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This article was published by the Faculty of Law.