Did you know October is dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of Cyber Security? In Europe, it’s known as European Cyber Security Month and in USA as National Cyber Security Awareness Month. But in both cases, the goal is the same: to promote digital security, highlight the scope of cybersecurity threats among citizens and organizations, provide useful online security information, and put good practices into spotlight.
October is cybersecurity awareness month.
Why does Cyber Security need its own month?
As the technology evolves and the amount of sensitive data on the internet increases, so does the opportunity for new, innovative cyber-attacks. Malware, ransomware, social engineering, phishing … the statistics are alarming! Criminals’ weapon of choice seems to be phishing: majority of cyberattacks start with an email. And current Covid situation’s only making it worse - there has been 600% increase in malicious emails during the current crisis! Cybersecurity has become one of the greatest challenges of this era, forcing companies to actively fight against those threats.
600% increase in cybercrime due to COVID-19 pandemic.
We do our part
Since attacks are getting more sophisticated, the only way to outsmart them is by intensive research and consequent innovation. In XLAB, we have been actively part of numerous security and privacy related research projects, aiming to make the world better with advanced technology. Security and privacy are one of the major pillars of our XLAB Research department. Currently, we’re innovating towards cyber security in 5 EU research project.
Let’s see what they are all about and how they contribute to the safer cyberspace.
Data privacy (especially privacy of personal data!) is a hot topic in today’s digital age. Project KRAKEN addresses the personal data sharing, brokerage and trading on the internet by guaranteeing the preservation of privacy. The overall objective of the project is development of a trusted and secure personal data platform, using state-of-the art privacy aware analytics methods. It’s all about returning the control of personal data back to users!
The world needs highly-skilled, multi-disciplined cybersecurity professionals that will be well prepared for a wide range of cybersecurity threats and will as such, actively contribute to society welfare. As a response to the increasingly aggressive cyber-landscape that Europe and the world is facing, we’re presenting project CYBERWISER.EU. Its purpose is to generate a simulated educational environment with cyber incident scenarios in which IT professionals as well as students will improve their skills and continuously evaluate their performance, getting ready for future real attack episodes. Sounds pretty cool, right?
Trust is vital, and we are not speaking only about trust in relationships 😉, but also in the world of ICT solutions. And here project FENTEC comes into play. Its mission is to develop new efficient and application-oriented functional encryption systems, that will increase trustworthiness of those solutions.
Today’s society is highly dependable on ICT systems, therefore the effects of even minor ICT infrastructure disruptions can be critical. The resilience of those systems is a must, especially when they are a part of ICT supply chains. Because you know - you are only as strong as your weakest link. Project FISHY’s here to guarantee a trusted supply chain of ICT systems built upon distributed, dynamic and often fundamentally insecure and heterogeneous ICT infrastructures. How? With the help of a coordinated framework for cyber resilience provisioning.
Cloud computing has evolved significantly during the last years, becoming a key technology in the digital transformation processes. Many companies have incorporated cloud technology in their everyday business activities, however, there is a challenge that comes with it - how to secure the cloud in the most efficient way possible and make cloud services trustworthy in the eyes of customers. Project MEDINA, starting in November, will create a framework for achieving a continuous audit-based certification in compliance with the EU-wide cloud security certification scheme.
In XLAB, cybersecurity is entwind in everything we do - either in the development of our own products or during the research and development within various research and commercial projects.
It’s not just about research projects - security is actually entwined in everything we do and it also plays an important role in the development of our own products (ISL Online, XLAB Steampunk). And yes, we are compliant with ISO/IEC 27001, the international standard for Information Security Management Systems.
Inspiring generation of cyber security warriors
So yes, we’re quite serious about security, as you can see. And besides taking it into account in everything we do, researching and innovating towards more effective solutions, we do our part in raising awareness, too. Be it by sharing expertise at security events and conferences or supporting them, or by encouraging and inspiring young minds to wake up the security warriors inside them at hackathons and similar events. Because yes, we’re innovating towards a more secure (cyber) world, but they’re the ones who will have to keep it safe.
