The Optical Networks and Technologies Laboratory (ONT-LAB), SEECS-NUST, in collaboration with CNIT, Italy, is organizing the ONT-LAB × CNIT Joint Research Workshop 2026, marking the culmination of a summer research collaboration involving 13 X researchers.

The workshop will showcase student research, prototypes, and demonstrations addressing emerging challenges in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence security, cloud-native systems, and intelligent network defence. The research themes are inspired by contemporary cybersecurity priorities identified within the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) and Horizon Europe research landscape.

The featured research areas include LLM and Generative AI security, autonomous AI-agent safety, AI-assisted Security Operations Centres (SOC), Docker and Kubernetes security, Falco/eBPF-based runtime threat detection, explainable AI for phishing detection, AI-RAN security, server-log anomaly detection, and GPU-accelerated intrusion detection.

The workshop will feature a keynote address by Filippo Cugini (CNIT, Italy), with technical sessions mediated by Dr. Mati ur Rehman (IQRA University) and Dr. Rana Abubakar (CNIT Italy).

ONT-LAB was founded by Dr. Arsalan Ahmad and is currently directed by Dr. Salman Abdul Ghafoor. The collaborative programme and workshop are coordinated by Dr. Sarosh Tahir, Program Coordinator, ONT-LAB, SEECS-NUST.

The event will be conducted in hybrid mode, enabling participation from researchers, faculty members, students, and collaborators from NUST and CNIT.

Event Details
Event: ONT-LAB × CNIT Joint Research Workshop 2026
Mode: Hybrid – SEECS-NUST & Microsoft Teams
Online Participation: Microsoft Teams
Organized by: ONT-LAB, SEECS-NUST in collaboration with CNIT, Italy

Day 1: Monday, 12 October 2026 | 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM PKT (4:00 PM – 6:30 PM CEST)
Day 2: Tuesday, 13 October 2026 | 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM PKT (4:00 PM – 6:30 PM CEST)