SPEAR

Over the last decade, cyber-attacks have become increasingly sophisticated, stealthy, targeted and multi-faceted which may leverage zero-day exploits and highly creative interdisciplinary attack methods. As our society is becoming increasingly dependent on Critical Infrastructures (CIN), new technologies are needed to increase our detection and response capabilities. Detecting and responding to such attacks by a highly motivated, skilled and well-funded attacker has however been proven highly challenging. One of the most vulnerable and high-impact CIN is the Smart Grid. Smart Grid is considered as the next-generation power system, which promises self-healing, resilience, sustainability and efficiency to the energy Critical Infrastructures (CIN). However, securing smart grids against cyber-attacks is of vital importance for National Security and Public Safety, 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. To this end, the SPEAR proposal aims at a) detecting and responding to cyber-attacks using new technologies and capabilities, b) detecting threat and anomalies timely, c) developing all-in-one security detection solutions, d) leveraging advanced forensics subject to privacy-preserving, e) confronting Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) and targeted attacks in smart grids, f) increasing the resilience of the smart grid innovation, g) alleviating the lack of trust in smart grid operators and h) empowering EU-wide consensus. Within SPEAR, four proof-of-concept Use Cases are planned in order to validate and assess the implemented security and privacy tools.

Consortium

University of Western Macedonia (UOWM) – Greece (Coordinator)
CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY HELLAS (CERTH) – Greece
European Dynamics (ED) – Luxemburg
Fundacion Tecnalia Research and Innovation (TEC) – Spain
Schneider Electric France SAS (SCHN) – France
ENEL IBERIA S.R.L (ENI) – Spain
University of Surrey (SURREY) – UK
Public Power Corporation S.A. (PPC) – Greece
Eight Bells LTD (8BL) – Cyprus
Incites Consulting SARL (INC) – Luxemburg
G.E. Pukhov Institute for Modeling in Energy Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (PIMEE) – Ukraine
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universitat Hannover (LUH) – Germany
Sidroco Holdings Limited (SH) – Cyprus
0 INFINITY Limited (0INF) – UK
Belarus State Economic University (BSU) – Belarus
Technical University of Sofia (TUS) – Bulgaria
VETS Lenishta OOD (VETS) – Bulgaria