{“lastseen”:”2026-02-16T11:58:01″,”description”:” \\n— \\nPresentation of the KTU Consortium Mission \u2018A Safe and Inclusive Digital Society\u2019 at the Innovation Agency event \u2018Innovation Breakfast: How Mission-Oriented Science and Innovation Programmes Will Address Societal Challenges\u2019. \\n \\nTechnologies are evolving fast, reshaping economies, governance, and daily life. Yet, as innovation accelerates, so do digital risks. Technological change is no longer abstract for such a country as Lithuania, as well. From e-signatures to digital health records, the country depends on secure systems. \\n\\nCybersecurity has become not only a technical challenge but a societal one \u2013 demanding the cooperation of scientists, business leaders, and policymakers. In Lithuania, this cooperation has taken a concrete form \u2013 the government-funded national initiative. Coordinated by the Innovation Agency Lithuania, the project aims to strengthen the country\u2019s e-security and digital resilience. \\n\\nUnder this umbrella, universities and companies with long-standing expertise are working hand in hand to transform scientific knowledge into market-ready, high-value innovations. Several of these solutions are already being tested in real environments, for example, in public institutions and critical infrastructure operators. As Martynas Survilas, Director of the Innovation Development Department at the Innovation Agency Lithuania, explains:\\n\\n\u201cOur goal is to turn Lithuania\u2019s scientific potential into real impact \u2013 solutions that protect citizens, reinforce trust in digital services, and help build an inclusive, innovative economy. The era of isolated research is over. In practice, science and business must work together to keep pace with complex, multilayered threats.\u201d\\n\\n## **A National Mission: Safe and Inclusive E-Society**\\n\\nAmong three strategic national missions launched under this program, one stands out for its relevance to the global digital landscape: \u201cSafe and Inclusive E-Society\u201d, coordinated by Kaunas University of Technology (KTU).\\n\\n\\n\\nThe mission aims to increase cyber resilience and reduce the risks of personal data breaches, with a focus on everyday users of public and private e-services, contributing directly to Lithuania\u2019s transformation into a secure, digitally empowered society. Its total value exceeds \u20ac24.1 million.\\n\\nThe KTU consortium includes top Lithuanian universities \u2013 Vilnius Tech and Mykolas Romeris University \u2013 as well as leading cybersecurity companies such as NRD Cyber Security, Elsis PRO, Transcendent Group Baltics, and the Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology, together with industry association Infobalt and the Lithuanian Cybercrime Competence, Research and Education Center. \\n\\nThe mission\u2019s research and development efforts cover a broad spectrum of cybersecurity challenges that define today\u2019s digital landscape. Teams are developing smart, adaptive, and self-learning buildings. In the financial sector, new AI-driven defense systems are being built to protect FinTech companies and their users from fraud and data breaches. Industrial safety is strengthened through prototypes of threat-detection sensors for critical infrastructure, while hybrid threat management systems are being tailored for use in public safety, education, and business environments. Other research focuses on combating disinformation through AI models that automatically detect coordinated bot and troll activity, as well as on creating intelligent platforms for automated cyber threat intelligence and real-time analysis. \\n\\n## **AI Fraud: A New Kind of Threat**\\n\\nAccording to Dr. Rasa Br\u016bzgien\u0117, Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Sciences at Kaunas University of Technology, the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) has fundamentally changed the logic of fraud against e-government services.\\n\\n\u201cUntil now, the main defense relied on pattern-based detection \u2013 for example, automated filters and firewalls could recognize recurring fraud patterns, typical phrases or structures,\u201d she explains. \u201cHowever, GenAI has eliminated that \u2018pattern\u2019 boundary. Today, criminals can use generative models to create contextually accurate messages. Models know how to write without grammatical errors, use precise terminology, and even replicate the communication style of institutions. This means that modern phishing emails no longer resemble \u2018classic fraud\u2019 but become difficult to recognize even for humans, let alone automated filters.\u201d\\n\\nShe emphasizes that both the scale and the quality of attacks have evolved: \u201cThe scale has increased because GenAI allows for the automated generation of thousands of different, non-repeating fraudulent messages. The quality has increased because these messages are personalized, multilingual, and often based on publicly available information about the victim. The result: traditional firewalls and spam filters lose their effectiveness because their detectors can no longer rely on formal features of words, phrases, or structure. The main change is no longer mass scale, but realism. In other words, modern attacks don\u2019t look like fraud \u2013 they look like normal legal communication.\u201d\\n\\n\\n\\nCriminals today, Dr. Br\u016bzgien\u0117 warns, have access to a broad arsenal of AI tools. They use models such as GPT-4, GPT-5, Claude, and open-source alternatives like Llama, Falcon, and Mistral \u2013 as well as darker variants such as FraudGPT, WormGPT, or GhostGPT, specifically designed for malicious activities. \u201cThey can clone voices using ElevenLabs or Microsoft\u2019s VALL-E from just a few seconds of someone speaking. For creating fake faces and videos, they use StyleGAN, Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and DeepFaceLab, along with lip-sync solutions like Wav2Lip and First-Order-Motion,\u201d she notes.\\n\\nEven more concerning, she adds, is how these tools are orchestrated together: \u201cCriminals produce photorealistic face photos, deepfake videos, and document copies with meticulously edited metadata. LLMs generate high-quality, personalized phishing texts and onboarding dialogues, TTS and voice-cloning models recreate a victim\u2019s or employee\u2019s voice, and image generation tools produce \u2018liveness\u2019 videos that fool verification systems. Automated AI agents then handle the rest \u2013 creating accounts, uploading documents, and responding to challenges. These multimodal chains can bypass both automated and human verification based on trust.\u201d\\n\\n\u201cThe scary part,\u201d Dr. Br\u016bzgien\u0117 concludes, \u201cis how accessible all of this has become. Commercial TTS solutions like ElevenLabs and open-source implementations of VALL-E provide high-quality voice cloning to anyone. Stable Diffusion, DeepFaceLab, and similar tools make it easy to generate photorealistic images or deepfakes quickly. Because of this accessibility, a single operator can create hundreds of convincing, different, yet interconnected fake profiles in a short time. We are already seeing such cases in attempts to open fake accounts in financial institutions and crypto platforms.\u201d\\n\\n## **AI-Powered Social Engineering**\\n\\nAnother new frontier is adaptive AI-driven social engineering. Attackers no longer rely on static scripts \u2013 they use LLMs that adapt to a victim\u2019s reactions in real time.\\n\\n\\n\\nBots start with automated reconnaissance, scraping social media, professional directories, and leaked databases to build personalized profiles. Then, the LLM crafts initial messages that mirror a person\u2019s professional tone or institutional language. If there\u2019s no response, the system automatically switches channels \u2013 from email to SMS or Slack \u2013 and changes tone from formal to urgent. If a target hesitates, the AI generates plausible reassurance, quoting real internal policies or procedures.\\n\\nIn one typical scenario, a \u201ccolleague\u201d writes via work email, follows up on LinkedIn, and then calls using a cloned voice \u2013 all orchestrated by connected AI tools. Dr. Br\u016bzgien\u0117 describes this as a new stage of cybercrime evolution: \u201cSocial engineering has become scalable, intelligent, and deeply personal. Each victim experiences a unique, evolving deception designed to exploit their psychological and behavioral weak points.\u201d\\n\\n## **Lithuania\u2019s Cyber Defense Leadership**\\n\\nLithuania\u2019s digital ecosystem \u2013 known for its advanced e-government architecture and centralized electronic identity (eID) systems \u2013 faces unique challenges. However, it also demonstrates remarkable progress. The country has risen steadily in international indices, ranking 25th globally in the Chandler Good Government Index (CGGI) and 33rd in the Government AI Readiness Index (2025).\\n\\nLithuania\u2019s AI strategy (2021\u20132030), updated in 2025, has prioritized AI-driven cyber defense, anomaly detection, and resilience-building. The National Cyber Security Centre (NKSC) integrates AI into threat monitoring, reducing ransomware incidents by fivefold between 2023 and 2024. Collaboration with NATO, ENISA, and EU partners further enhances Lithuania\u2019s hybrid defense capabilities.\\n\\n\u201cWe see cyber resilience not just as a technical task but as a foundation for democracy and economic growth,\u201d says Survilas. \u201cThrough the safe and inclusive e-society mission, we are not only protecting our digital infrastructure but also empowering citizens to trust and participate in the digital world. AI will inevitably be used for malicious purposes, but we can also use AI to defend. The key is collaboration across sectors and continuous education. This mission is one of the tools helping us turn that idea into concrete projects, pilots, and services for people in Lithuania.\u201d\\n\\nFound this article interesting? This article is a contributed piece from one of our valued partners. 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