High-Assurance Software

About Centre

At the High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), we improve practice through theory, creating and implementing software that goes beyond mere functionality: we ensure it is correct, resilient, and secure against failures and attacks. Our team of researchers, scientists, and engineers has proven expertise in software engineering, developing methods and tools to design and integrate robust software; in distributed systems, exploring distribution and replication to ensure scalability and reliability; and in information security, addressing cybersecurity challenges and improving systems with advanced, secure cryptographic protocols, thus minimising vulnerabilities. With a multidisciplinary approach supported by solid theoretical principles, we develop innovative solutions for critical software, secure cloud infrastructures, and privacy-aware big data management, driving scientific advancement, innovation, and high-level consultancy. In addition, we complement our core expertise with work in human-computer interaction, programming languages, computational mathematics, and quantum computing - because we believe the future of trustworthy software is built on knowledge and innovation.

Centre Areas

Segurança da Informação

Our research in Information Security combines rigorous theoretical foundations with innovative practical approaches. We aim to build secure systems with formal guarantees, bridging the development of cryptographic protocols with their efficient and reliable implementation. On the theoretical side, we work with security proofs and computer-assisted cryptography, developing formal techniques that automatically validate security properties. On the applied side, we focus on implementations that meet high standards of performance and security, ensuring that theoretical guarantees are preserved from specification through to final code. To achieve this, we design domain-specific languages and tools that facilitate the development of highly trustworthy cryptographic software. We also investigate advanced threat detection and response mechanisms, which are essential to continuously preserving the security properties of systems. Our solutions are applicable to several domains, including privacy-preserving technologies, secure data storage, and cloud computing — all critical areas for ensuring security in the digital age.

Sistemas Distribuídos

In Distributed Systems, we are transforming the way data is managed in cloud computing, critical systems, advanced computing infrastructures, and artificial intelligence ecosystems. We explore new frontiers in reliability, replication, and data distribution, developing novel consensus protocols and conflict-free approaches to eventual consistency, ensuring data integrity through replicated data types. We optimise the processing of transactional and analytical workloads in databases and create secure methods for handling data in untrusted environments, enhancing the resilience and security of systems. Learn more <a href= "mailto:https://dbr-haslab.github.io/" target="_blank">here</a>. We design efficient data storage solutions capable of keeping up with the rapid growth of digital information. We use modern technologies to meet the demands for performance, scalability, reliability, security, and energy efficiency. Discover more <a href= "mailto:https://dsr-haslab.github.io/" target="_blank">here</a>. We develop middleware systems with a focus on semantic interoperability, applied to real-world use cases and data spaces. Our mission is to shape the future of distributed data management, with solutions for the next generation of digital services.

Engenharia de Software

The Software Engineering area aims to develop novel methods, techniques, and tools that advance how software is designed, constructed, and assessed. It seeks to ensure that the research results have a lasting impact on software development practices and contribute to improving the industry’s competitiveness. The main research lines are: 1) software requirements, design, and construction: requirements management, software architecture and design, model-driven development, and cloud-native software engineering; 2) software testing: model-based testing, mobile testing, distributed systems testing, and IoT testing; 3) software process and tools: agile processes, process improvement, tools for collaboration and knowledge management; serious games in software engineering education. Within these research lines, we aim to continue to identify, get to the essence, and document what actually constitutes good solutions in modern-day software engineering, working closely with professionals; and continuing to advance the state of the art in techniques, practices, and tools that can, in different ways, improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and experience of software developers.

Flagship Projects

CloudDBAppliance

The project aims at producing a European Cloud Database Appliance for providing a Database as a Service able to match the predictable performance, robustness and trustworthiness of on premise architectures, such as those based on mainframes. The project will evolve cloud architectures to increase the uptake of cloud technology by providing the robustness, trustworthiness, and performance required for applications currently considered too critical to be deployed on existing clouds.

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

Cloud-Setup

The MOG CLOUD SETUP aims to develop tools for post-production of high quality audiovisual content for the television industry that allow the automation in inserting and/or replacing content in TV programming and that can work both inside a radio broadcast station as well as in a cloud-based environment. This project is of extreme importance for the television and audiovisual content industries as it allows the automation of processes that are extremely expensive nowadays. This way, it will facilitate and speed up the content formatting that must be displayed in multiple distribution platforms. Project Datasheet

PLATAFORMA DE PREPARAÇÃO DE CONTEÚDOS AUDIOVISUAIS PARA INGEST NA CLOUD

See more projects

Team Members

Team Leaders

Manuel Alcino Pereira da Cunha

Alcino Cunha is Associate Professor at the Department of Informatics of University of Minho and a member (and currently co-coordinator) of the High-Assurance Software Laboratory, a research center of the INESC TEC associate laboratory. His research focuses on making formal software design more accessible for all software engineers, and he was one of the main developers of the new version 6 of the Alloy lightweight formal method, that added support for behavioral specifications and temporal logic. He is also interested in the topic of robotic software quality, namely developing formal analysis tools for software developed with the popular ROS framework. He published over 70 papers, including several papers in relevant software engineering and robotic venues, such as TSE, FSE, ASE, IROS, or FM.

António Luís Pinto Ferreira de Sousa

I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Informatics of the University of Minho and a Senior Researcher at HASLab/INESC TEC.

My research interests are in dependable distributed systems, in particular with application to dependable distributed database systems, large scale distributed systems and cloud computing management.