Personal Presentation

José Filipe Alves has been a member of the Information Security Unit of the University of Porto (U.Porto) since 2015, CSIRT.UPORTO, where he currently works as an Information Security Specialist. He is a representative of the Technical, Specialist and Management Staff on the General Council. Since 2019, he has served as a board member of the European Campus Card Association (ECCA), having been elected to several positions, namely Secretary General and President. He is a member of the EUNIS InfoSec Special Interest Group, and on the Higher Education Interoperability Workgroup.

Between 2022 and 2024, he assumed coordination functions within the Information Security Unit, assisting previous managers with various matters related to team management and administration. In addition to the activities of coordination, handling and response to security incidents (core functions of the Unit), and monitoring the perimeter of the U.Porto (using tools adapted to the present context, including their maintenance), he was, until 2022, responsible for the management of the life cycle of the U.Porto card, and for the architecture, expansion and evolutionary monitoring of access control systems in operation, in several Constituent Entities. He develops information security, governance, risk, and compliance management activities, possessing a solid knowledge of regulatory frameworks, standards, and guidelines, both national and international, applicable to his area of competence.

He has been involved in multiple co-funded projects related to digital transformation and cybersecurity, both at the national level and within the consortia SAMA CYBERLAB, SAMA PROPoSAL, SAMA xSOC, SAMA ARENA, and SAMA CAP-IES. At the international level, he was involved in the projects Erasmus+ projects ESC-TENSION, CEF ESVA, and CEF UpOESIRT. In the CEF initiatives, he has accumulated the role of Principal Investigator (PI). Also, as PI, he participates in the large-scale pilot DIGITAL DC4EU and in the eduTAP project. He has presented at several conferences and workshops in the areas of Information Technology (IT) and Information Security, with an emphasis on C-Days, EAIE, ECCA, and FCCN Conferences, having been a member of the organisation for some of these events' editions.

In 2024, he assumed the role of Security Officer at the University of Porto, currently serving as the Permanent Contact Point, as per Decree-Law No. 65/2021, of 30 July. In the national context, he integrates working groups focused on the area of Information Security, highlighting the group responsible for creating and revising the taxonomy of the National CSIRT Network, as well as another dedicated to revising the network's terms of reference. He is the representative of the U.Porto at the Agency for the Technological Reform of the State (ARTE), in the process of joining the Certification System of Professional Attributes (SCAP), as per the Management Board's order (2021). He represented the U.Porto in the IT group of the interuniversity alliance EUGLOH, v1.0 and v2.0 (and also EUGLOH, in the FOREU4ALL initiative).

Between October 2005 and November 2015, he worked as a Computer Technician at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (FLUP), having developed multidisciplinary skills in the IT area, highlighting the activities of computer support and training of the academic community for the good use of U.Porto resources, namely computer equipment, applications and information systems. During this period, he developed skills in the administration and support of systems in the Microsoft Windows environment (account management, printers, backups), Linux and macOS, in the management of the computer park (services and classrooms), and in the configuration/maintenance of computer equipment, including network assets.

Still at FLUP, he accumulated activities at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto (FFUP), ensuring the continuous operation of virtualisation infrastructures and providing high availability of these solutions. Of these added responsibilities, the administration of email infrastructures, identity management, and printing systems, as well as the management of network assets, including the voice over IP (VoIP) platform, stands out.

In 2003, he began his professional career as a Computer Technician at the educational institution Colégio de Gaia. Over the course of two years, he performed administrative, maintenance, and configuration tasks for servers, systems, networks, and workstations. He was also responsible for maintaining backup copies, repairing all computer equipment, assisting teachers, students, and other institution employees, including supporting and monitoring classes, and resolving related issues. This enriching experience allowed him to acquire the necessary knowledge to start working at the University of Porto.

He has a degree in Multimedia Systems from the Polytechnic Institute of Management and Technology. He is currently in his second year of the master's program in Computer Engineering at the Porto Higher Institute of Engineering. In this institution, he obtained postgraduate training in Cybersecurity and Systems Administration, Computer Systems, and Graphic Systems and Multimedia.

Access to LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-filipe-alves/