PROJECT TITLE

SPEAR: Secure and PrivatE smArt gRid

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

As our society is becoming increasingly dependent on Critical Infrastructures, new technologies are needed to increase our detection and response capabilities. Detecting and responding to cyber-attacks by a highly motivated, skilled and well-funded attacker has been proven highly challenging. One of the most vulnerable and high-impact Critical Infrastructure is the smart grid since the collapse of an energy production utility may cause human lives, millions of euros, denial of a very important and common good such as energy and days or even months of recovering. In order to overcome this issue, SPEAR comes to provide effective solutions in detecting, responding and taking countermeasures against advanced cyber threats and attacks targeted to modern smart grids.

SPEAR aims at developing an integrated platform of methods, processes, and tools for:

• timely detecting evolved security attacks using big data analytics, advanced visual-aided anomaly detection tools, and smart node trust management schemes;
• developing an advanced forensic readiness framework for collecting attack traces and preparing the necessary legal evidence in court, while preserving user private information;
• implementing an anonymous smart grid channel for mitigating the lack of trust in exchanging sensitive information about cyberattack incidents;
• performing risk analysis and awareness through cyber hygiene frameworks, while empowering EU-wide consensus, by collaborating with European and global security organisations, standardisation bodies, industrial groups and smart grid operators;
• exploiting the research outcomes to more critical infrastructure domains, while creating competitive business models for utilising the implemented security tools in smart grid operators and actors across Europe.

8BELLS ROLE

8BELLS leads the definition of the overall SPEAR system architecture as well as the technical specifications for the individual components. 8BELLS also contributes to the definition of the KPIs used for evaluation and assessment of the final platform, the integrated prototypes and the pilot demonstrations.

Furthermore,8BELLS implements an anonymous communication channel for data exchange among smart grid operators and stakeholders and participates into the testing and validation of the system interoperability, conducting tests for the system against benchmarking and correcting any deviations.