Dr. Seppo Virtanen is an Associate Professor in Cyber Security Engineering and Vice Head of Department of Computing, the University of Turku, Finland. He received his MSc in applied physics (electronics and information technology) in 1998 and his PhD [DSc(Tech)] in Communication Systems in 2004 from the University of Turku. In 2009, he was awarded the title of adjunct professor (dosentti) in Embedded Communication Systems. He completed his certificate in university pedagogy in 2010 and became a holder of the government decree regulated teacher's competence and qualification. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has supervised more than 130 Master’s theses and taught more than 70 instances of 23 different university courses to engineering students as principal instructor. His current research interests are on cyber security in smart environments, secure network and communication technology and security technologies for IoT.

Application-domain specific communication and data security: Ensuring the security, privacy and safety of communication and data when Internet-of-Things is an everyday commodity to the general public; especially in application domains dealing with e-Health, autonomous traffic and smart environments,

Cyber Security technology and assessment: Development of cyber security technologies and assessment methods for future networked systems; detection technologies for new network security solutions and methods for assessing and predicting the security levels of deployed networks; systems with security, privacy and safety considered as elements to be built in,

Cyber security for the society and the individual: Addressing the human element and factor in cyber security to prevent the potential massive personal and societal damage arising from the threats and risks in the wide-spread adoption of future smart environments (smart cities, smart traffic, smart spaces, e-Health, e-voting) and technologies by individuals and organizations; securing the human side of digital transformation, including research on the effectiveness, content and development of cybersecurity education.

Our lab has the main educational responsibility in two Master’s level major programs, of which one has a double degree option within the EIT Digital Master School. We also teach several courses in our undergraduate program and Collaborate with foreign institutions in implementing educational partnership degree programs.

Master's degree majors:

• Cyber ​​Security: The major focus is on Researching cyber security technologies developed for networked systems and applications of the communication-Intensive future. The technological topics covered include security of smart environments, system and network security, security of communication systems and applications, and designing secure systems.
• EIT Digital Master School Cyber ​​Security, Security of Networked Systems: this is a double degree implementation of the UTU Cyber ​​Security major in the EIT Digital Master School. The EIT Digital Master School is a two-year Master’s program jointly run by 20 top European Universities, renowned researchers, and leading businesses. The program leads to a double degree and an EIT labeled Certificate. The Cyber ​​Security major acts as both an entry site and an exit site for the EIT Master School. The students start their cyber security studies in one of the Universities offering the entry year studies and move to another university in another country for the exit (specialization) year. In the field of cyber security, the cyber security major subject at UTU is the only degree program in Finland to participate in the EIT Digital Master School.
• Communication and Cyber ​​Security Engineering: this major is officially taught in Finnish, although in most courses, the teaching language is English. The major is part of the degree program “Degree Program in Information and Communication Technology”. The course-level implementation is more or less equal to the two cyber security majors.