PROTASIS — Restoring Trust in the cyber space: a Systems Security Proposal

Results in brief

Restoring Trust in the cyber space: a Systems Security Proposal

The main problem addressed in this project is the erosion of our security and privacy in cyberspace. As more and more aspects of our everyday lives move into cyberspace, they may open new vulnerabilities and increase our potential attack surface. For example, although using digital maps and digital assistants provides users with convenient real-time directions to their destination, at the same time, it may reveal the users’ location and may compromise the users’ privacy. Similarly, although using web banking is more convenient than waiting in line in a real bank, it may make users more susceptible to phishing attacks and financial malware. One can find countless examples of how our move from the traditional physical world into its digital equivalent may compromise the users’ security and privacy. We feel that securing our new and emerging digital lives is getting increasingly important for our society and especially for the Digital Single Market. Indeed, if the cyberspace is not secure, or, to make matters worse, if the cyberspace ends up being really dangerous, people, and possibly their business, will just slowly move away from it. As a result, the Digital Single Market will not be able to reach its full potential. With an eye towards cybersecurity, the overall objective of the project is to improve European Expertise in the area of cybersecurity and privacy through International and Intersectoral secondments to top academic and Industrial partners in Europe and US. The secondments implemented in this project have not only increased European Expertise (as can be seen by the number of top scientific publications), but have also resulted in stable international and inter-sectoral collaborations which are bound to last well beyond the end of the project.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Fueled by a string of high profile attacks and recent revelations about unprecedented cyber surveillance, interest in systems security is rising-not just among industry and governments, but even among individual citizens across Europe. Corporate organizations worry about the viability of their businesses, nation states about cyber attacks by other nation states or terrorist groups, and citizens about the trustworthiness of the ICT infrastructures. The long list of recent security incidents is eroding people's trust in the digital economy and shows that more research is needed.Unfortunately, expertise is fragmented across many places, while the exchange of knowledge is lacking. If one group specializes in code-reuse attacks and another in embedded systems, ideally they should team up to detect code-reuse vulnerabilities in embedded devices. Today, however, the flow of ideas is limited to publications and ad-hoc collaborations. A more efficient exchange would occur if a researcher temporarily joins the other group to collaborate directly on-site.Over the past few years Europe has created several world-class research centers in systems security. They publish in the most prestigious venues and have a significant impact on both the scientific community and society at large. Nevertheless, in terms of numbers, most top groups are still in the US and the ability to collaborate with them would be a tremendous boost for security research in Europe.We plan to foster such collaborations by supporting researchers from European institutes to spend time with their American counterparts in top universities. We will gather the research results in a repository that links all the exchanges and provides a valuable input for collaborative projects in itself. We will focus our research efforts on both advanced attacks (e.g., exploits, malware, and exfiltration techniques), and defenses (e.g., developing secure software and protecting resource-constrained devices).

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

IDRYMA TECHNOLOGIAS KAI EREVNAS · IRAKLEIOCoordinatorGreece
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · CambridgeUnited States
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY · Boston MaUnited States
POLITECNICO DI MILANO · MilanoItaly
RUHR-UNIVERSITAET BOCHUM · BochumGermany
STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY · HobokenUnited States
STICHTING VU · AmsterdamNetherlands
TELEFONICA INVESTIGACION Y DESARROLLO SA · MadridSpain
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS · UrbanaUnited States
THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA · OaklandUnited States
THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION OF STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK · Albany NyUnited States
THE TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY · BOSTON MAUnited States
TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK · New YorkUnited States
WITHSECURE OYJ · HELSINKIFinland

PROTASIS · Restoring Trust in the cyber space: a Systems Security Proposal

Results in brief

Restoring Trust in the cyber space: a Systems Security Proposal

Project objective

Participants

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