Risto Vaarandi received his PhD degree from Tallinn University of Technology in 2005, and his MSc degree from University of Tartu in 1997. He is currently working as a senior researcher in Tallinn University of Technology.
From 1998 until 2018 he was affiliated with SEB financial group and NATO CCDCOE. His research interests include machine learning for cyber security, event correlation, data mining for event logs, and network security.
How do you see your role in the Horizon 2020 ERA Chair project?
I don’t have any previous maritime experience and rather have an IT background. I hope that my knowledge on cyber security helps to strengthen the project and its research capabilities, and I will be acting as a security monitoring researcher under this project.
Why is Estonia/TalTech the best place for the ERA Chair project in maritime security?
TalTech has both the Maritime Academy and a well-established cyber security research group (Centre for Digital Forensics and Cyber Security). There are not so many universities with these qualities, and that makes TalTech an excellent choice for the ERA Chair project.
What are the main challenges in the project?
Since the project involves people with wide variety of backgrounds (maritime, cyber security, psychology, etc.), getting the project started and creating a team required quite some time. Also, since many of the project participants are involved on part-time basis, I would say that efficient time management might be one of the main challenges for this project.
What would be the key experience you take with you from the past to the project?
I have worked for a long period of time in the industry as a cyber security engineer, specializing on security monitoring technologies. Also, I have conducted academic research in the same domain for about 20 years. Hopefully my past academic and industrial experience will prove useful for the project.
They say there is at least one Estonian in every port of the world – what connects you to the sea and maritime sector?
My great-great-grandfather Hermann was a captain of a sailing ship.
Contact: risto.vaarandi@taltech.ee
