LUDOVIKA UNIVERSITY OF PUBLIC SERVICE

Department of Military National Security

Department of Military National Security

 

Dear Visitor, Welcome to the Signal Department!

It is a great honor for us that you visit our Department's website!

All best regards,

Dr. (Col.) István Resperger PhD

Acting Head of Department, professor

 

Head of Department: Dr. (Col.) István Resperger PhD full-time university professor.

 

Contacts:

Office: H-1101 Budapest, Hungária krt. 9-11., Zrínyi Campus, Building 41.

Phone: (+36)-1-432-9000/29-220

E-mail: resperger.istvan@uni-nke.hu

 

Curriculum vitae

Presently  he is a full-time professor at the Department Military National Security and acting head of the Department. 2004-2018  associate professor.  2018 he was appointed by the President of the Republic as a full-time professor. 2014 associate professor with habilitation. 2006 and 2011, she led the Hungarian Higher Military (General Staff) Course, and was also Deputy Dean of the Military. 2002-2004 he made a German General Staff Course in Hamburg at the Führungsakademie. 2002 he won doctorate degree (PhD); his topic was the Military Task of Crisis Management. In 2000                 he graduated at the Garmisch-Partenkirchen Marshall Center security policy course, 21st Century Leader. 1999-2004 assistant professor. 1997 Budapest ZMNE master program participant, then Doctoral School of Military Sciences student.  1991 he attended a battalion command course in Switzerland. 1981-1985 he graduated at the Lajos Kossuth Military College in Szentendre as an armored officer.

 

About the Department

Mission Statement of the Department of Military National Security

Our mission is to train professionals and specialists for the Military National Security Service in Bachelors of Science (BSc) and Masters of Science (MSc) programs in accordance with national interests. Graduates acquire their theoretical and practical knowledge and skills required for military national security activities at high level. We also aim to familiarize students with intelligence gathering and counter intelligence skills in complex trainings. The aim of scientific research carried out under the aegis of the Department is to develop and pursue the science of military national security. Scientific researches at the Department focusing on national security issues are carried out in close cooperation with the research institute of the Military National Security Service, the mandating authorities and organizations as well as with national and foreign scientific and professional workshops and research organizations.

 

Military National Security Cyberspace Operations Special Unit

Introduction

The Military National Security Operations Special Unit (hereinafter: “Special Unit”) was set up at the base of the Department of Military National Security operating at the Faculty of Military Science and Officer Training of the University of Public Service with the aim to provide an organized framework for synthesizing research on themes relating to national security and cyberspace operations.

The basic mission of the Special Unit is to pursue the endeavor of bringing together research groups, institutions and individual researchers of the relevant topics in addition to supporting individual research activities, while also establishing the possibility of a long-term and multidisciplinary cooperation for the analysis of relevant topics, which ensures adaptation to the versatility of cyberspace security issues.  

As its name, portfolio, staff members and position within the faculty implies, the Special Unit focuses on the military and military national security aspects of the complex topic of cyberspace and cybersecurity.  This does not mean that the Special Unit is not open to cooperation and researches beyond these topics and issues. One of the features of cyberspace is its high modification ability. Today’s challenges and issues, which may not have a military nature yet, may later on gain military or military national security relevance in the changing security environment of the 21st century.

Due to necessary digitalization and the complexity of security issues, it is of paramount importance to have a comprehensive approach and to examine social, awareness-raising and other psychological issues related to cyberspace in addition to the technical and regulatory dimensions. This may also be expressed by saying that special attention should be given to the social aspects of cybersecurity in conformity with efforts of NATO and its member countries aimed at enhancing Allied resilience. In connection with these aims, the model to be followed for the establishment of the Special Unit has been the activities of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence and the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats.

In addition to the idea of intensifying science-based cooperation, another reason motivating the establishment of the Special Unit has been the concept that cyberspace-related professional work, strategic, operational and regulatory decision-making can be effective only if a diverse institutional framework capable of developing and elaborating scientific background information, analyses and recommendations is set up within the institution which is primarily entrusted with the task of training the future staff of public service in addition to carrying out researches, and the Special Unit is made to be a new, military and military national security element of this framework.

Experts who at the time of the Unit’s establishment were invited to set the aims, set up the Unit and to provide professional contents of the framework identified two main topics as guidelines:

       – Professional intersections and possible directions for development of cybersecurity, national defence and military national security activities – supervisor: dr. Károly Kassai (PhD)

       – Regulatory and governance issues and possible directions for development related to military and military national security cyberspace operational capabilities – supervisor: dr. Ádám Farkas (PhD)

 

In view of the establishment of the Special Unit in the spring of 2021, the major tasks of the first year include starting researches and analyses of the above topics and developing frameworks for the Special Unit’s operation, which also involve setting the aims of researches for the first three-five years as well as the beginning of relevant researches.  

We truly hope that our activities will soon raise our respected readers’ interests and will enhance our dear colleagues’ and research fellows’ efforts to cooperate and get involved in joint researches.

Kind regards:

Dr. Károly Kassai (PhD)

honorary associate professor

Head of Special Unit

 

Excerpt of the Military National Security Cyberspace Operations Special Unit’s Research Program 2021-2025

The development of digitalisation, together with the emergence of cyberspace as a dominant “alternative” space indicates the growing importance of security aspects today in addition to the fundamental social, economic, psychological, political and other effects of the 21st century. This change has enormous benefits, as it can, among others, accelerate innovation, production, communication and financial processes, increase their efficiency, and make everyday life easier and more enjoyable with newer and newer solutions. 

 
In addition to the advantages, however, cyberspace, like almost all revolutionary novelties in human history, also has its negative aspects, its downsides. Some people want to use the benefits of digitization for illegal, immoral or harmful purposes, or they try to exploit them within the tool kits of opposition against and rivalry for power. This “downside” includes cybercrimes, influencing and intelligence gathering in cyberspace, but it undoubtedly involves the intertwining of terrorism and warfare with cyberspace as well. 

 
The key to further developing cyberspace and digitalisation, to exploiting its benefits smoothly and to the benefit of society as a whole is, therefore, to develop associated security capabilities and to strengthen the effectiveness of the fight against malicious and harmful actions in adaptation to challenges. 

 
In addition to everyday use, cyberspace is also an emphatic area for radical activities and for the rivalry for power to manifest themselves. The digitization of various (public) services, extraordinary data traffic, the direct accessing of social groups and sometimes even the provision of false or manipulated information to them serve as effective tools, by which the stability, efficient operation and the sovereignty of a given state can be significantly violated and destabilized. Besides these offensive interventions, it is evident that cyberspace also offers a new, extraordinary field for intelligence activities to obtain relevant information and infiltrate information systems. All these must be linked with hybrid threats, which destabilization in cyberspace fits perfectly as a preparatory step, but it can even function as a military strategic element, in preparation for military actions.

 

Within the security issues, special attention should be paid to military and military national security aspects. The events of the last decade have made it clear that military strategic thinking can also be transformed for cyberspace operations, but only alongside a complex solution which operates not exclusively with military elements, by posing primarily national security challenges, and with the continuous underlying presence of military elements.

 

Therefore, it is essential in the first five-year long research program of the Special Unit that in addition to monitoring the new phenomena related to the above described ones, the logical structure of researched themes and the set of activities should ensure systematic advancement to facilitate the professional-scientific approaches and the processing of analyzed issues.

 

 

Considering all this, the research program consists of

       – cyclically repeated tasks, and

       – research tasks that are thematically built upon each other.

In addition to these, depending on available research capacities, openness should be shown to the fulfilment of unscheduled research tasks that are based on requests received from the University of Public Service or professional organizations and bodies having a portfolio connected to cyberspace operations issues.

The results of the researches are presented primarily in a series of electronic research papers titled „Military and Intelligence Cybersecurity Research Paper”, which is published by the Special Unit, and after manuscripts have been processed and discussed, further work is done in journals thematically categorized by committees of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and in other platforms of publication.

Besides publications, discussing themes, questions and results of researches as well as synthethising viewpoints cannot dispensed with either to achieve synergic effects. Accordingly, the Special Unit considers consultations, workshops and conferences, which support research activities, to be important tools for the efficient processing of specific topics.

Cyclically repeated research tasks and themes

                Monitoring professional literature related to the field of research, reviewing publications and communications which are considered to be of paramount importance.

       Analytical and reviewing activity focusing on military and military national security cyberspace innovations as well as on related novelties and international trends.

 

               Monitoring national governance, organizational and regulatory frameworks and drawing up analyses and proposals necessary for developments.

 

Preparation of analyses and proposals facilitating the operational and regulatory adaptation of professional and technical innovations of military and military national security cyberspace operation activities.

 

Monitoring the developments of NATO and EU-level cyberspace operations and drawing up analyses and proposals assisting national adaptation.

 

Research tasks and themes thematically built upon each other for 2021-2025

   

Professional intersections and possible directions of development of cybersecurity, national defence and military national security activities.

  

Regulatory and governance issues and possible directions for development related to military and military national security cyberspace operation capabilities.

              Drawing up proposals on the development of regulations regarding cyberspace operation activities of the Military National Security Service and the Hungarian Defence Forces.

                Multidisciplinary possibilities of ensuring cyberspace security and strengthening considerations concerning cyberspace operations – issues of analysis of national resilience and resilience to be interpreted in other contexts.    

               The place and role of cyberspace and cyberspace operations within the framework of regular defence and security tasks, crisis management and special legal order.

        Possible directions for training, awareness-raising activities and methods related to the development and strengthening of military and military national security cyberspace operation capabilities.

 

  European and NATO-level development experience and possibilities of national adaptation of military and military national security cyberspace operations.  

 

Regulatory solutions for military and military national security cyberspace operations in foreign countries.

                The place and role of military and military national security cyberspace operations in the security awareness of society and the system of national resilience.      

Dr. Károly Kassai (PhD) honorary associate professor

Head of Special Unit