CICERO: a Spanish network for strengthening company cybersecurity

The CICERO project is getting underway with a view to setting a strategic R&D programme about cybersecurity in motion in order to orientate research towards companies using AI as a key technological factor.

The project has been funded by 3.5 million Euros from the CDTI (Spanish Centre for the Development of Technology) via the 2023 Cervera Grants for Technology Centres.

The taking on board of information and telecommunications technologies on a mass scale is transforming our society and all sectors of our economy. Although this transformation entails countless benefits, it also increases the risks associated mainly with cyberthreats. When organisations adopt new technologies with a view to maintaining their competitiveness and efficiency, they also become exposed to a greater number of vulnerable situations. It is essential for innovation to advance at the same pace in terms of cybersecurity in order to deal with these challenges.

The CICERO national project came into being within this context of putting a strategic R&D programme about cybersecurity into practice, geared towards the transfer, generation and attracting of research talent in cybersecurity. CICERO is at present the only Cervera cybersecurity network that focuses on orientating research towards companies using AI as a key technological factor.

Four key challenges

Funded with 3.5 million Euros by the CDTI via the 2023 Cervera Grants for Technology Centres of Excellence, the project involves four technology centres - Gradiant, CEIT, i2CAT, ITCL Technology Centre and FIDESOL – who are committed to the potential offered by technology transfer through the following four areas of research:

Challenges in terms of identification

The first challenge involves the threats and vulnerable situations to which organisations are exposed. Technologies that enable cyber intelligence to be obtained are keys in this regard, such as honeypots, technologies focusing on the identification of vulnerable situations, and risk analysis methodologies.

Challenges in terms of protection

Assistance for organisations will be developed with a view to improving the robust nature of their systems when faced with cyberattacks. This includes any technologies that may improve security in network protocols and their implementation, in cyber-physical systems and access control, and also ensuring protection in emergent paradigms and the virtualisation of network functions.

Challenges in terms of detection

Technologies will be developed to enable suspicious events to be detected in increasingly complex systems and company data networks. Research will be conducted into technologies based on the mass processing of information, its correlation and statistical analysis - essential for suitable detection.

Challenges in terms of response and recovery

In the event of a cybersecurity incident, a rapid, coordinated and informed response is essential to ensure that information systems and data networks in organisations return to a familiar, expected and secure state. Research will be conducted into orchestration techniques and rapid reconfiguration of networks via software-defined networks, in addition to a forensic analysis to determine the impact of such incidents.

Ceit’s role

By focusing on these challenges, Ceit will be working on different specific objectives such as the consolidation of research into industrial cybersecurity, research into and development of knowledge regarding cybersecurity in Cloud environments, the use of machine learning techniques to detect anomalies in industrial environments, and the development and integration of identity management systems and access. Moreover, the technology centre will be developing a hybrid cybersecurity laboratory to enable realistic analyses of industrial systems to be carried out.

Among the objectives set out by the project, which will be ongoing until June 2025, are to establish the grouping together of technology centres as benchmarks in research and development in cybersecurity, foster collaboration, and maximise innovation and the socio-economic impact. Additionally, the aim is also to encourage effective technology transfer and develop specialist training programmes that focus on Cervera technology to train research and technical staff.