Cyber Security Network of Competence Centres for Europe

Project Information

CyberSec4Europe

Grant agreement ID: 830929

DOI

10.3030/830929

Project closed

EC signature date 27 February 2019

Start date 1 February 2019

End date 31 December 2022

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 15 999 981,25

EU contribution

€ 15 999 981,25

Coordinated by

JOHANN WOLFGANG GOETHE-UNIVERSITAET FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CyberSec4Europe (Cyber Security Network of Competence Centres for Europe)

Reporting period: 2021-06-01 to 2022-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The primary objective of CyberSec4Europe was to pilot the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre and the related competence network. CyberSec4Europe’ s 43 participants from 22 EU Member States and Associated Countries, addressed key cybersecurity domains, critical technology/application elements and several key vertical sectors, including finance, supply chain, education, smart cities, healthcare and maritime transport.
CyberSec4Europe consortium partners together with its associates and friends made a major contribution to the security of European citizens and businesses. This demonstrates how industry, academia and policymakers can successfully collaborate.
CyberSec4Europe worked towards harmonising the journey from the development of software components that fit the requirements identified by a set of short- and long-term roadmaps, leading to a series of recommendations. These were tied to the project’s real-world demonstration use cases that addressed cybersecurity challenges within the key vertical sectors.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Governance (WP2)
• P1: Developed a bottom-up governance structure to address the cybersecurity challenges through capitalising on community-derived capabilities and ensuring robust cooperation. The results were evaluated in a small-scale pilot and fed into a recursive evaluation and refinement structure.
• P2: Validated the assumptions on the governance structure and improved the governance model. Carried out case studies on establishing CHECKs (in France and Spain) and on developing the European cybersecurity ecosystem.
• P3: Refined its approach for cybersecurity community governance in the EU, addressing urgent cybersecurity challenges by capitalising on community-derived capabilities and ensuring robust cooperation.

Research (WP3)
• P1: Identified and grouped cybersecurity research and innovation through technology assets and related functional cybersecurity architecture.
• P2: A Blueprint Architecture focused on cybersecurity functional framework based on the research work based produced
• P3: Book "Workshop on Digital Sovereignty in Cyber Security: New Challenges in Future Vision" published with Springer in Communications in Computer and Information Science

Road Mapping (WP4)
• P1: Based on stakeholder requirements, identified the most important cybersecurity research directions.
• P2: Created a roadmap for research for the application demonstrators, explained its contribution to European Digital Sovereignty and identified opportunities and threats.
• P3: Produced the Blue Book: The future Research Roadmap for Cyber Security https://cybersec4europe.eu/our-results/books/

Application Demonstrators (WP5)
• P1: Identified the requirements of the demonstrator use cases, supporting project research activities and roadmaps.
• P2: Continued with the demonstrators and published blueprints, validation strategies and results and refined the set of use cases.
• P3: Completed the specification and set-up of Phase-2 demonstration cases. The subsequent validation of the use cases summary includes lessons learned for future work.

Education (WP6)
• P1: Building on the direct feedback of more than 100 Directors of Studies at European universities, indicated Europe’s strengths and weaknesses and highlighted key quality criteria such as on MOOCs for cyber ranges.
• P2: Designed an education and professional framework which built 18 relevant job profiles.
• P3: Mapped skills of knowledge framework to ESCO. Surveyed serious games for human-factor gap.

Tools (WP7)
• P1: Built the first components of a portable lightweight virtual lab environment for cybersecurity exercise engagement and efficient learning, enhanced several open tools for certification and validation, and reviewed the role of cybersecurity certification and its implementations.
• P2: The Cyber Sandbox Creator provided as a fully open-source environment.
• P3: The analytical tool seccerts and the https://cybersec4europe.eu/open-tool-portal for both end- and expert users

Standardisation (WP8)
• P1: Mapped the project standardisation work and matched the relevant standards and ongoing projects to the project's research challenges and verticals to enable a two-way knowledge transfer.
• P2: Established the liaison with WGs in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 and updated the participants’ standardisation engagement plans.
• P3: Updated the standards mapping, made an overview of the differences and similarities of 8 SDOs and gave recommendations to the EC and ECCC about standardisation.

Dissemination, Communication and Exploitation (WP9)
• P1: Communicated the progress of CyberSec4Europe, targeting a broad audience and highlighting achievements.
• P2: Managed the website and social media accounts, including weekly news postings and a series of video interviews, webinars and further brand development.
• P3: Produced a book, 'Stories - the narrative of a European cybersecurity community'. Organised the Momentum! event showcasing the project results, exploitable and innovative assets and a series of forward-looking keynote speakers and panellists.
Community Building (WP10)
• P1: Reported on the project's impact on the European cybersecurity community ecosystem. Organised the 2019 concertation event with about 150 attendees resulting in detailed recommendations for strategic cybersecurity issues.
• P2: Organised and hosted CONVERGENCE, the second concertation event, in 2020. featuring the four pilots, focus groups, ECSO, and EU institutions and agencies.
• P3: Organised CONVERGENCE NEXT in 2022 in order to provide a full snapshot of the work and achievements of all 4 Pilots and ECSO during the project period – concertation involving the European Commission, the European Institutions, the relevant stakeholders, all 4 Pilots, ECSO and the cybersecurity community in the broadest sense.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

• A vibrant pilot community: bottom up, inclusive, decentralised and agile with respect to new requirements and spontaneous requests from the EU
• The design of a distributed governance model
• A research roadmap and blueprint design based on real application requirements
• Education, certification and standardisation initiatives
• Integration of all pilots, ECSO and focus groups in a single comprehensive event, CONVERGENCE NEXT
• A final conference, Momentum!, that showcased the results of the project together with the presentation of the project's best exploitable assets as well as a series of external keynote speakers
• Implementation of principles in practice; for example, GDPR compliant open-source web conferencing
CyberSec4Europe’s results contribute to the goal and vision of an EU with the capabilities to secure and maintain a healthy democratic society according to European constitutional values, with respect to, for example, privacy and data sharing and being a world-leading digital economy.
Its impact will be significant resulting from the governance model, through the strong links between the real-world demonstration cases, research and technology and the roadmap, to dissemination, outreach and exploitation. CyberSec4Europe has contributed to the enhancement of Europe’s competitiveness while providing greater security for European citizens and society which in turn will result in economic growth for Europe, jobs for European citizens, and the expansion of global markets for European cybersecurity products and services.

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