Project description
Tricking computer hackers to protect real assets
The new digitisation era envisages a world where all electronic devices are part of a single network known as the Internet of Things (IoT). Along with economic and social opportunities, IoT also creates new cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Protection against hackers is vital. The EU-funded D-FENCE project is developing a solution that deceives hackers by creating decoys – false endpoints (PCs, servers) that mimic real assets, and lures them away from real production systems. Also, an alarm is immediately set off so hackers are rapidly detected and a counter-attack launched. This defence and counterattack technology will protect companies and save them millions of euros in damages.
Objective
The ineffectiveness of current cybersecurity solutions is alarming: 97% of entities are vulnerable to the more and more sophisticated attacks of hackers and the reported incidences have multiplied its number by 18 from 2009 to 2015. This is causing massive annual losses of approx. €38Bn/year only in Europe, with an average damage of €9.5M per company attacked. The rising trend on the Internet of Things, expected to bring 50 Bn connected devices by 2020, will multiply by orders of magnitude the risks of cybercrime and so the potential damages. Aiming to tackle this challenge, we present D-FENCE, an advanced cybersecurity solution that applies Cyber Deception to ‘cheat the hackers’. D-FENCE creates lures (credentials, HTML tags, cookies…) and distributes them across the real production systems. These lures point to our decoys, i.e. false endpoints (PCs, servers…) that mimic real assets. When attackers try to access the decoys (and they will do), an alarm is immediately triggered, so it is possibly to rapidly detect, monitor, analyse and counteract any attack. Meanwhile, the real assets are safe from the attacker, who is tangled in our deceptive virtual environment. According to our preliminary experiences, D-FENCE enables 70% more effective and 95% faster detection of attacks compared to existing cybersecurity solutions, meaning potential savings of billions € per year. We, Cybertrap GmbH, are an Austrian start-up devoted to create cybersecurity solutions. The D-FENCE Project is the natural continuation of our previous achievements and brings an enormous opportunity not only for our company but also for the European and global economy. The enhanced prevention, detection and counteraction capabilities provided by D-FENCE will enable companies saving hundreds of thousands to millions € per entity and billions € at EU level. For our company, D-FENCE’s commercialisation will have as well remarkable impact: +€13.3M revenues and at least 30 new job positions by 2023.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesinternetinternet of things
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftwaresoftware applicationssystem softwareoperating systems
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencescomputer security
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
2700 WIENER NEUSTADT
Austria
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.