By Philip Butterworth-Hayes
An end-of-project demonstration of the Federated Advanced Cyber-Physical Test Range (FACT) project, co-funded by the European Defence Fund (EDF), in Riga, Latvia, on October 29 has demonstrated technical solutions which will allow industry and battlefield commanders to swiftly validate the cyber security status of their systems and components.
“As cyber activity intensifies, FACT will carry out additional checks on the systems and equipment planned for deployment, identifying potential vulnerabilities and verifying that critical systems are functioning reliably,” said a press release about the system. “By connecting distributed testing environments and specialised expertise, the project will consolidate trusted evidence and provide decision-makers with actionable recommendations to address risks before deployment.”
At the heart of the system is a centralised platform which connects to 19 test sites and consortium members (see “The FACT consortium”) throughout the European Union and Norway. Working together, they can provide remote testing of entire ecosystems or individual components to check cyber resilience levels.
The validation system can be remotely accessed and calibrated to customise the validation request – the deeper the dive into the technological resilience elements the longer the validation will take.
The technology demonstrated is at a pre-deployment stage though consortium members have been working with national procurement officials to discuss how and when the system can be launched.
A filter allows individual nations to ensure sovereign-sensitive data is not shared with other nations.
| The FACT consortium Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace AS (Coordinator) Norway; Approach, Belgium; Austrian Institute of Technology, Austria; BALTIJOS PAZANGIU TECHNOLOGIJU INSTITUTAS, Lithuania; BIANOR, Bulgaria; certSIGN, Romania; CR14, Estonia; Crosshill, Finland; Derant, Denmark; Emproof, Netherlands; Latvijas Mobilais Telefons SIA, Latvia; Leonardo, Italy; Nokia Bell Labs, Hungary; Norges Tekniske og Naturvitenskaplige Universitet (NTNU), Norway; Rheinmetall; Germany; Space Hellas, Greece; Terma, Denmark; Thales Norway, Norway; University of Genoa, Italy. |
(Image: KONGSBERG)
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