Cookies Policy
The website need some cookies and similar means to function. If you permit us, we will use those means to collect data on your visits for aggregated statistics to improve our service. Find out More
Accept Reject
  • Menu
Facts & Numbers
000
Presentation

High-Assurance Software

HASLab is focused on the design and implementation of high-assurance software systems: software that is correct by design and resilient to environment faults and malicious attacks. 

To accomplish this mission, HASLab covers three main competences — Cybersecurity, Distributed Systems, and Software Engineering — complemented by other competences such as Human-Computer Interaction, Programming Languages, or the Mathematics of Computing. 

Software Engineering – methods, techniques, and tools for rigorous software development, that can be applied to the internal functionality of a component, its composition with other components, as well as the interaction with the user.

Distributed Systems – improving the reliability and scalability of software, by exploring properties inherent to the distribution and replication of computer systems.

Cybersecurity – minimize the vulnerability of software components to hostile attacks, by deploying structures and cryptographic protocols whose security properties are formally proven.

Through a multidisciplinary approach that is based on solid theoretical foundations, we aim to provide solutions — theory, methods, languages, tools — for the development of complete ICT systems that provide strong guarantees to their owners and users. Prominent application areas of HASLab research include the development of safety and security critical software systems, the operation of secure cloud infrastructures, and the privacy-preserving management and processing of big data.

Latest News

The project that fosters the creation of business apps with non-relational data has come to an end

RADicalize Big Data, a service provision project with OutSystems carried out by INESC TEC’s High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), allowed the development of a way to integrate Big Data sources in business applications, using a low-code approach that is compatible with the OutSystems platform.

14th June 2019

Keyruptive is INESC TEC's most recent spin-off

Keyruptive is INESC TEC's most recent spin-off and it operates in the IT security area. It was born in Braga, being the result of a work of many years from a group of researchers of INESC TEC’s High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), and already has a technology solution to present to the market, whose name is the same as the company that was created.

13th June 2019

INESC TEC leads EUR 36M European project for the digitalisation of the power system

InterConnect, which is the name of the biggest European collaborative project approved by the European Commission, under the Horizon 2020’s funding programme, will be led by INESC TEC.

04th June 2019

Company CLEARSY visits INESC TEC

Thierry Lecomte, R&D projects Director at CLEARSY Systems Engineering, visited INESC TEC’s High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), in Braga, and also the Institute’s headquarters, in Porto, between 6 and 7 March.

23rd April 2019

CoLAB VORTEX was officially launched and has INESC TEC as a partner

It was under the conferences PERIN 2019 “+ Ciência, + Europa” that took place the presentation session of the Collaborative Laboratory (CoLAB) VORTEX in Cyber-Physical systems and Cyber Security, having INESC TEC as one of its partners and with the participation ensured by the High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab).

02nd April 2019

060

Projects

exaSIMPLE

exaSIMPLE: A Hybrid ML-CFD SIMPLE Algorithm for the Exascale Era

2024-2025

Saude24GB

Linha de Saúde 24h da Guiné-Bissau

2024-2024

EPICURE

High-level specialised application support service in High-Performance Computing (HPC)

2024-2028

TwinEU

Digital Twin for Europe

2024-2026

HANAMI

Hpc AlliaNce for Applications and supercoMputing Innovation: the Europe - Japan collaboration

2024-2026

ENSCOMP3

Ensino de Ciência da Computação nas Escolas 3

2023-2025

AzDIH

Azores Digital Innovation Hub on Tourism and Sustainability

2023-2025

PFAI4_4eD

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4 - 4a edição

2023-2023

ATE

Alliance for Energy Transition

2023-2025

Green_Dat_AI

Energy-efficient AI-ready Data Spaces

2023-2025

EuroCC2

National Competence Centres in the framework of EuroHPC Phase 2

2023-2025

fMP

Formação de Introdução à utilização de recursos HPC (Técnicas básicas de Programação Paralela)

2022-2022

AURORA

Deteção de atividade no interior do veículo

2022-2023

NewSpacePortugal

Agenda New Space Portugal

2022-2025

ATTRACT_DIH

Digital Innovation Hub for Artificial Intelligence and High-Performance Computing

2022-2025

BeFlexible

Boosting engagement to increase flexibility

2022-2026

ENERSHARE

European commoN EneRgy dataSpace framework enabling data sHaring-driven Across- and beyond- eneRgy sErvices

2022-2025

Gridsoft

Parecer sobre a implementação de software para redes elétricas inteligentes

2022-2022

PFAI4_3ed

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4 - 3a edição

2022-2022

THEIA

Automated Perception Driving

2022-2023

SpecRep

Constraint-based Specification Repair

2022-2023

IBEX

Métodos quantitativos para a programação ciber-física: Uma abordagem precisa para racicionar sobre imprecisões na computação ciber-física

2022-2024

FLEXCOMM

Towards Energy-aware Communications: Connecting the power grid and communication infrastructure

2022-2023

STDCNCS

Desenvolvimento de estudo sobre a comunidade de cibersegurança em Portugal, no âmbito do Observatório de Cibersegurança

2021-2023

Sustainable HPC

Computação de elevado desempenho sustentável

2021-2025

CircThread

Building the Digital Thread for Circular Economy Product, Resource & Service Management

2021-2025

PassCert

Exploring the Impact of Formal Verification on the Adoption of Password Security Software

2021-2022

IoT4Distribuicao

Análise de Requisitos e Especificação Funcional de uma Arquitetura Distribuída baseada em soluções IoT para a Gestão e Controlo da Rede de Distribuição

2021-2023

RISC2

A network for supporting the coordination of High-Performance Computing research between Europe and Latin America

2021-2023

CloudAnalytics4Dams

Gestão de Grandes Quantidades de Dados em Barragens da EDP Produção

2021-2021

PAStor

Programmable and Adaptable Storage for AI-oriented HPC Ecosystems

2020-2021

PFAI4.0

Programa de Formação Avançada Industria 4.0

2020-2021

Collaboration

Collaborative Visual Development

2020-2021

AIDA

Adaptive, Intelligent and Distributed Assurance Platform

2020-2023

BigHPC

A Management Framework for Consolidated Big Data and HPC

2020-2023

SLSNA

Prestação de Serviços no ambito do projeto SKORR

2020-2021

AppOwl

Deteção de Mutações Maliciosas no Browser

2020-2021

InterConnect

Interoperable Solutions Connecting Smart Homes, Buildings and Grids

2019-2024

T4CDTKC

Training 4 Cotec, Digital Transformation Knowledge Challenge - Elaboração de Programa de Formação “CONHECER E COMPREENDER O DESAFIO DAS TECNOLOGIAS DE TRANSFORMAÇÃO DIGITAL”

2019-2021

CLOUD4CANDY

Cloud for CANDY

2019-2019

HADES

HArdware-backed trusted and scalable DEcentralized Systems

2018-2022

MaLPIS

Aprendizagem Automática para Deteção de Ataques e Identificação de Perfis Segurança na Internet

2018-2022

SKORR

Advancing the Frontier of Social Media Management Tools

2018-2021

DaVinci

Distributed architectures: variability and interaction for cyber-physical systems

2018-2022

SAFER

Safery verification for robotic software

2018-2021

KLEE

Coalgebraic modeling and analysis for computational synthetic biology

2018-2021

InteGrid

Demonstration of INTElligent grid technologies for renewables INTEgration and INTEractive consumer participation enabling INTEroperable market solutions and INTErconnected stakeholders

2017-2020

Lightkone

Lightweight Computation for Networks at the Edge

2017-2019

CloudDBAppliance

European Cloud In-Memory Database Appliance with Predictable Performance for Critical Applications

2016-2019

GSL

GreenSoftwareLab: Towards an Engineering Discipline for Green Software

2016-2019

Cloud-Setup

PLATAFORMA DE PREPARAÇÃO DE CONTEÚDOS AUDIOVISUAIS PARA INGEST NA CLOUD

2016-2019

CORAL-TOOLS

CORAL – Sustainable Ocean Exploitation: Tools and Sensors

2016-2018

SafeCloud

Secure and Resilient Cloud Architecture

2015-2018

NanoStima-RL1

NanoSTIMA - Macro-to-Nano Human Sensing Technologies

2015-2019

NanoStima-RL3

NanoSTIMA - Health data infrastructure

2015-2019

SMILES

SMILES - Smart, Mobile, Intelligent and Large scale Sensing and analytics

2015-2019

UPGRID

Real proven solutions to enable active demand and distributed generation flexible integration, through a fully controllable LOW Voltage and medium voltage distribution grid

2015-2017

LeanBigData

Ultra-Scalable and Ultra-Efficient Integrated and Visual Big Data Analytics

2014-2017

Practice

Privacy-Preserving Computation in the Cloud

2013-2016

CoherentPaaS

A Coherent and Rich PaaS with a Common Programming Model

2013-2016

Team
001

Laboratory

CLOUDinha

Publications

HASLab Publications

View all Publications

2023

Generative Adversarial Networks in Healthcare: A Case Study on MRI Image Generation

Authors
Cepa, B; Brito, C; Sousa, A;

Publication
2023 IEEE 7TH PORTUGUESE MEETING ON BIOENGINEERING, ENBENG

Abstract
Medical imaging, mainly Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), plays a predominant role in healthcare diagnosis. Nevertheless, the diagnostic process is prone to errors and is conditioned by available medical data, which might be insufficient. A novel solution is resorting to image generation algorithms to address these challenges. Thus, this paper presents a Deep Learning model based on a Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network (DCGAN) architecture. Our model generates 2D MRI images of size 256x256, containing an axial view of the brain with a tumor. The model was implemented using ChainerMN, a scalable and flexible framework that enables faster and parallel training of Deep Learning networks. The images obtained provide an overall representation of the brain structure and the tumoral area and show considerable brain-tumor separation. For this purpose, and owing to their previous state-of-the-art results in general image-generation tasks, we conclude that GAN-based models are a promising approach for medical imaging.

2023

General-Purpose Secure Conflict-free Replicated Data Types

Authors
Portela, B; Pacheco, H; Jorge, P; Pontes, R;

Publication
2023 IEEE 36TH COMPUTER SECURITY FOUNDATIONS SYMPOSIUM, CSF

Abstract
Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs) are a very popular class of distributed data structures that strike a compromise between strong and eventual consistency. Ensuring the protection of data stored within a CRDT, however, cannot be done trivially using standard encryption techniques, as secure CRDT protocols would require replica-side computation. This paper proposes an approach to lift general-purpose implementations of CRDTs to secure variants using secure multiparty computation (MPC). Each replica within the system is realized by a group of MPC parties that compute its functionality. Our results include: i) an extension of current formal models used for reasoning over the security of CRDT solutions to the MPC setting; ii) a MPC language and type system to enable the construction of secure versions of CRDTs and; iii) a proof of security that relates the security of CRDT constructions designed under said semantics to the underlying MPC library. We provide an open-source system implementation with an extensive evaluation, which compares different designs with their baseline throughput and latency.

2023

Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning in Life Insurance Risk Prediction

Authors
Pereira, K; Vinagre, J; Alonso, AN; Coelho, F; Carvalho, M;

Publication
MACHINE LEARNING AND PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY IN DATABASES, ECML PKDD 2022, PT II

Abstract
The application of machine learning to insurance risk prediction requires learning from sensitive data. This raises multiple ethical and legal issues. One of the most relevant ones is privacy. However, privacy-preserving methods can potentially hinder the predictive potential of machine learning models. In this paper, we present preliminary experiments with life insurance data using two privacy-preserving techniques: discretization and encryption. Our objective with this work is to assess the impact of such privacy preservation techniques in the accuracy of ML models. We instantiate the problem in three general, but plausible Use Cases involving the prediction of insurance claims within a 1-year horizon. Our preliminary experiments suggest that discretization and encryption have negligible impact in the accuracy of ML models.

2023

Caos: A Reusable Scala Web Animator of Operational Semantics

Authors
Proença, J; Edixhoven, L;

Publication
Coordination Models and Languages - 25th IFIP WG 6.1 International Conference, COORDINATION 2023, Held as Part of the 18th International Federated Conference on Distributed Computing Techniques, DisCoTec 2023, Lisbon, Portugal, June 19-23, 2023, Proceedings

Abstract

2023

Can We Communicate? Using Dynamic Logic to Verify Team Automata

Authors
ter Beek, MH; Cledou, G; Hennicker, R; Proenca, J;

Publication
FORMAL METHODS, FM 2023

Abstract
Team automata describe networks of automata with input and output actions, extended with synchronisation policies guiding how many interacting components can synchronise on a shared input/output action. Given such a team automaton, we can reason over communication properties such as receptiveness (sent messages must be received) and responsiveness (pending receivesmust be satisfied). Previouswork focused on how to identify these communication properties. However, automatically verifying these properties is non-trivial, as it may involve traversing networks of interacting automata with large state spaces. This paper investigates (1) how to characterise communication properties for team automata (and subsumed models) using test-free propositional dynamic logic, and (2) how to use this characterisation to verify communication properties by model checking. A prototype tool supports the theory, using a transformation to interact with the mCRL2 tool for model checking.

Facts & Figures

21Senior Researchers

2016

1R&D Employees

2020

14Proceedings in indexed conferences

2020

Contacts