The European project ‘Enhancing Cybersecurity Services for the Luxembourgish Research and Education community’ - LuCySe4RE whose aim is to improve protection against the cybersecurity risks faced by the Luxembourg research and education community is a 3-year journey starting in September 2023. With the second year of this project co-funded by the European Union’s Digital Europe programme (DIGITAL) ended during summer 2025, Restena reports on the progress made during this pivotal year.
A sketch of an infrastructure now concretes
The security event management platform dedicated to the Luxembourg institutions of the research and education community released during the first year of the project has taken shape. The infrastructure of this so-called ‘LuCy platform’ is based on open-source technologies and is managed and monitored by Restena, on its servers, within its premises. The second year of the project enabled Restena to validate the infrastructure with the help of IT Teams and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) working in the project’s partner organisations. The Luxembourg Institute of Health (LIH), the Lycée Guillaume Kroll (LGK) and its BTS Cybersecurity section joined the institutions involved in the project during its first year – the University of Luxembourg, the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) and the Centre de gestion informatique de l'éducation (CGIE).
At the same time, administration tools specifically developed by Restena's teams have enhanced the LuCy platform. Tailored to the needs of the research and education community, they enable better integration of the various modules available on the platform.
A new service for the research and education
Relying on the work accomplished for the security event management platform, a DNS firewall has been implemented and integrated within the Restena service catalogue during the second year of the project. This service – enabling any institution to protect their IT network from IT threats caused by the individual activities of their users thanks to differentiated filtering and the blocking of problematic content – was also installed and activated in June 2025 on the CGIE technical infrastructure. Ever since, inappropriate or even dangerous content is no longer accessible from the educational networks of Luxembourg secondary schools.
This successful integration, and those to come, will play a key role in the ongoing evolution of the DNS firewall within the next few months, the advantage being that the service meets the research and education community's expectations as closely as possible. The progress made is already bearing fruit: the work developed in Luxembourg are inspiring similar initiatives beyond Luxembourg borders, including other National Research and Education Networks (NRENs)and institutions operating in the education and research sectors.
An ongoing commitment to raising awareness
Above the technical aspect of the project, which fully involves the institutions’ IT teams, the awareness-raising work targeting researchers, professors, administrative staff and students continued during the second year of the project. Investment in CyberDay.lu and Data Privacy Day – two events dedicated to raise awareness and promote good practice – has been maintained, as the number of courses in the Digital Learning Hub's training catalogue. As in the first year, the Domain Name System (DNS), the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) protocol, incident management, and multi-factor authentication were addressed to overcome the weaknesses identified at the beginning of the project. Four new training courses were even developed and offered to interested parties.
A tip sheet, listing the best practices for email hygiene, downloadable from restena.lu and available in hard copy on request from the institutions, completes the range of services thus developed.
After two years of intense work, the project is getting ready to deliver its final report in a few months. The result of this work will expand Restena's portfolio of security services for the research and education community.