Horizonte Europa has set aside 4.6 million euros for the CROSSCON project, in which the ALGORITMI Centre, from the University of Minho, participates. Portuguese institution can receive up to 577.2 thousand euros.

The Internet of Things (IoT) brings new cybersecurity challenges. At a time when cyber attacks are increasingly frequent, the CROSSCON project (Cross-platform Open Security Stack for Connected Devices) wants to innovate in the security of IoT devices and applications.

The European project CROSSCON aims to mitigate the current security problems associated with the need to have devices totally distinct from each other connected to the Internet. It is a solution called security stack, which will be able to provide different levels of security to connected devices, such as preventing external access to sensitive information, allowing secure and controlled connection of devices, providing multi-factor authentication mechanisms and authorized and secure remote updates.

Led by ATOS (Spain), international leader in digital transformation, with 111,000 employees, and with scientific validation from the University of Trento (Italy), the European consortium also involves five SMEs from countries like Spain, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland and Switzerland and the universities of Minho and Darmstadt and Wurzburg (Germany).

For Algoritmi researchers, the fact that IoT devices have a large “heterogeneity of hardware configurations” makes it “necessary the coexistence of several technologies and security functionalities totally distinct from each other and with different criticality requirements”.

This reality makes the “technological process involved in the development of security approaches and mechanisms that aim at the protection of these devices” an “even greater challenge”, reminds Sandro Pinto, main researcher. He is joined by Tiago Gomes, João Luís Monteiro and David Cerdeira.

With a 36-month duration, it will not be necessary to wait for the end of the project to enter the market. As the researcher Sandro Pinto adds, “during the execution of the project, and as the artefacts start to emerge, it is expected that their use can be immediate. This will allow users to evaluate the CROSSCON stack already during its development. Not only can you achieve early adoption, but you can also have constant feedback on potential problems or difficulties in using the solution.

SOURCE: Portugal Global e Tek Sapo