R2D2: A New Member of the EU Cluster for Securing Critical Infrastructures
R2D2: A New Member of the EU Cluster for Securing Critical Infrastructures
R2D2 is set to make significant contributions to the European Cluster for Securing Critical Infrastructures (ECSCI) by focusing on strengthening the security and resiliency of power systems. ECSCI, which comprises a cluster of European projects, serves as a platform for sharing advancements in security and resilience within critical infrastructure.
The objective of this engagement is to facilitate the exchange of findings related to the prevention and mitigation of cascading events, cyber-threat intelligence, and other factors influencing the resiliency and security of electrical systems with fellow cluster participants.
R2D2 project coordinator, Ugo Stecchi, emphasizes the significance of this involvement, stating, “It will be a valuable opportunity to share our accumulated knowledge not only with stakeholders in the energy sector but also with experts from various critical infrastructure domains. We can exchange best practices and procedures, thus contributing to the ongoing discourse on the state-of-the-art of critical infrastructure security.”
ECSCI’s primary goal is to create synergies and promote innovative solutions to security challenges through collaborative efforts and innovation across projects. Research endeavors will center on safeguarding critical infrastructures and services, emphasizing the distinctive approaches adopted by the clustered projects and building robust connections with closely related and complementary H2020 projects. To promote cluster activities, ECSCI plans to organize international conferences and national or international workshops, engaging policymakers, industry representatives, academics, practitioners, and delegates from the European Commission.”
Further information:
info@r2d2project.eu
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101075714.
Unlocking the Power of Threat Hunting in OT Environments
Unlocking the Power of Threat Hunting in OT Environments
In today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, industrial systems and critical infrastructures are more exposed than ever to cyber threats. Since the arrival of the Industry 4.0 paradigm, both Information Technologies and Operational Technologies (IT and OT) coexist, and APT groups and cybercriminals take advantage of vulnerabilities in either of these two technologies to cause damage to these industrial infrastructures or to the society itself, which relies on them.
Threat hunting is a complex process carried out by cybersecurity experts to detect the presence of the above-mentioned Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). This process usually entails inspecting network traffic, analyzing user and application logs, and correlating all that heterogeneous information in search of indications of the presence of any threat or potential vulnerability in the system.
CARMEN, the tool developed by S2 Grupo in collaboration with Spain’s National Cryptologic Centre to identify compromises by APTs, is one of the tools cybersecurity experts can use in the threat-hunting process. CARMEN covers both IT and OT traffic, providing comprehensive threat visibility that enables early detection of vulnerabilities and anomalies in industrial control systems. Proactive threat detection in OT environments enhances overall security, improves incident response, and minimizes operational disruptions. Furthermore, it enhances asset visibility, inventory management, compliance adherence, and cost reduction. Ultimately, this adaptation future-proofs security measures, ensuring the safeguarding of critical infrastructure in our ever-evolving digital landscape.
As part of the R2D2 project, S2 Grupo has begun expanding CARMEN’s capabilities for analyzing OT traffic by developing new capabilities for data ingestion and threat detection. These developments will include the creation of new specific protocol dissectors for CARMEN, such as MQTT, ICCP 60870-6/TASE.2, IEC 60870-5-104, or Modbus, as well as new pre-processing and aggregation capabilities to reduce the amount of information to be processed and its inner variability. These developments will enhance CARMEN’s ability to carry out a more in-depth analysis of network traffic at different levels and to improve its detection capabilities, including both signature-based and anomaly-detection-based methods.
Additionally, new capabilities aimed at APT and zero-day threat detection using Machine Learning techniques are being developed for CARMEN within the scope of R2D2. This approach is based on modeling and characterizing tactical and operational intelligence, allowing for the comparison of suspicious actions. This way, APT groups can be clustered based on the tactical and operational intelligence they employ when attacking a system. As a result, when anomalous behavior is observed and detected, it’s possible to match this behavior against each APT group cluster, assess the possibility of being under an attack carried out by one of the APT groups in these clusters, and raise an alert. Furthermore, this approach allows for alerting cybersecurity analysts about other actions typically associated with these APT groups so that they can search for any of these actions if they haven’t been noticed before or be prepared for the next stages of the attack.
This developmental milestone and new feature have received substantial acclaim, especially at events like the Navaja Negra Conference, held in Spain in October 2023. The enthusiastic approval from both attendees and experts underscores the significance of this advancement in threat-hunting technology.
Further information:
Ugo Stecchi (Project coordinator)
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101075714.
EMMA-SURVEILLANCE: Enhancing Substation Security with AI-Powered Visual Detection
EMMA-SURVEILLANCE: Enhancing Substation Security with AI-Powered Visual Detection
Within the context of the R2D2 project, an innovative tool known as EMMA-SURVEILLANCE is currently in development to bolster the security of critical facilities located in electrical substation transformer centers. This solution integrates an artificial vision algorithm that has been honed by retraining the well-known YOLO (You Only Look Once) model. This algorithm is equipped with the ability to efficiently detect fires, smoke, and the presence of animals in the vicinity of the substation. The purpose of identifying fires and smoke is to promptly alert personnel to potential emergencies, ensuring a swift and effective response. Furthermore, recognizing animals is of utmost importance, as many of them tend to come into contact with the substation structures, posing the risk of electrocution and causing significant disruptions to the electrical system. This model will be deployed in a stationary camera situated within the corresponding pilot substation.
In this initial phase, the algorithm has exhibited remarkable precision, achieving an F1 score of 0.84. This achievement is particularly noteworthy, especially when considering the project’s early stages. As the next steps, the plan involves expanding the dataset, with the objective of collecting more images of fires and smoke to enhance the model’s accuracy. Concurrently, the load testing phase will be initiated, assessing the model’s inference capacity when operating in a real camera and continuously processing real-time video streams. This process is critical to ensure that the algorithm can perform effectively without significant delays, thereby guaranteeing its practicality for real-time monitoring scenarios.
Some examples of recorded images of the AI-powered visual detection.
ETRA I+D’s expert team will be on hand to provide visitors with first-hand knowledge of the R²D² project, in addition to physical and digital promotional materials, explanatory videos, and live demonstrations of their ground-breaking innovations. The exhibition will also feature a series of “Coffee talks” scheduled over the three-day event, where project experts, invited guests, and visitors can discuss their work on energy transition and the latest developments in the field.
Further information:
Ugo Stecchi (Project coordinator)
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101075714.
R²D² showcases its coming innovations at EUSEW 2023
R²D² showcases its coming innovations at EUSEW 2023
R²D², the cutting-edge energy project coordinated by ETRA I+D, will be showcasing its latest and most innovative developments at the Energy Fair during the European Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW 2023) in Brussels from June 20th to 22nd. As part of the Horizon 2020 and Horizon EU frameworks, R²D² aims to improve the resilience and reliability of Electrical Power and Energy Systems (EPES) against growing threats and vulnerabilities that pose a risk to critical infrastructure.
Don’t miss the chance to see R²D² in action at the ETRA I+D booth during EUSEW 2023!
ETRA I+D’s expert team will be on hand to provide visitors with first-hand knowledge of the R²D² project, in addition to physical and digital promotional materials, explanatory videos, and live demonstrations of their ground-breaking innovations. The exhibition will also feature a series of “Coffee talks” scheduled over the three-day event, where project experts, invited guests, and visitors can discuss their work on energy transition and the latest developments in the field.
Further information:
Ugo Stecchi (Project coordinator)
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101075714.
Launched R²D² project to improve the security and resilience of the EU grid
Press Release
Valencia (Spain), 5 October 2022
Launched R²D² project to improve the security and resilience of the EU grid
On 1st October 2022, the new project R²D² on Reliability, Resilience and Defense technology for the grid, funded by the Horizon Europe Programme with €9.7 million and set for 3 years, was launched. As part of a consortium of 17 partners in 9 countries throughout Europe working on the project, ETRA I+D will coordinate the consortium.
ETRA Investigation y Desarrollo, S.A. (ETRA I+D) is the hi-tech unit within ETRA Group, one of the leading industrial groups in Spain.
R²D² aims at improving the resilience and reliability of current Electrical Power and Energy Systems (EPES) against a growing number of threats and vulnerabilities that may affect such critical infrastructure, exposing weaknesses with harmful and damaging effects on different stakeholders and final customers.
This will be done through the deployment of four tools dedicated to the prevention, protection and restoration of EPES in two different independent but complementary scenarios in the energy value-chain – from regional coordination between TSOs, to privacy of LV customers. The project will build on top of strong energy coordination actions in South-East Europe (SEE), following EU legislation and in alignment with the recent activities promoted by ENTSO-E about cyber-security in transmission systems.
Through the demonstration and integration of the innovative solutions proposed by R²D², it will be possible to achieve a more secure, reliable and resilient energy system in Europe, making a positive and tangible impact throughout the European EPES value chain. In this context, R²D² will deliver a palette of complementary solutions synthesised into four Products: “Multi-risk assessment framework for power system”, “Resilience suite for TSO & DSO” , “Prevention Systems For Energy Infrastructures Security” and “Enhanced Assets Maintenance And Management Toolkit”.
R²D² results will be tested and validated in 4 large-scale complementary demonstrators in Greece, Serbia, Spain, and Slovenia involving representative and complete value chains, a wide variety of energy sources, networks, systems and assets, and spanning heterogeneous climatic, geographic and socioeconomic conditions which will facilitate replicability, scale-up and eventual market launch.
Thanks to a smart, efficient end-to-end monitoring and control of power networks as the R²D² tools do, EPES benefit from an overall system costs reduction coming from reduced system power losses (technical and nontechnical), lower number and duration of outages or lower investment in disaster recovery.
About ETRA I+D
ETRA Investigation y Desarrollo, S.A. (ETRA I+D) is the hi-tech unit within ETRA Group, one of the leading industrial groups in Spain. ETRA’s mission is putting technology to work for serving society in the fields of energy efficiency, mobility, security and communications. ETRA leads the 17 partners’ consortium developing R²D² project.
ETRA will contribute to improving the resilience and reliability of the power grid electricity grid, as well as reducing the number of failures and extending the useful life of the components. To do this, thanks to autonomous drones and artificial intelligence, it will develop new solutions that integrate automation and robotics in predictive maintenance and the optimal management of assets in electricity transmission and distribution networks.
Further information:
Ugo Stecchi (Project coordinator)
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101075714.