14-12-2022 – Örnsköldsvik, Sweden – Clavister, a leader in high-performance, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based cybersecurity solutions, has been awarded a co-funded collaborative research project, named Collective Intelligence Supported by Security Aware Nodes (CISSAN), supported by CELTIC-NEXT, a European research group working on next-generation communication for a secure and trusted digital society. Clavister will be part of the Swedish consortium and will provide specialised AI-based cybersecurity capability to create more secure networks for the European energy sector.
Cyber threats targeting IoT devices and the occurrence of cybersecurity incidents have increased over recent years due to the ever wider penetration of IoT devices across the entire spectrum of daily activities and critical infrastructure, such as energy & utilities. There have been 48 known cyber incidents against European energy suppliers in the last five years, with 20 incidents reported in 2022 alone[i].
To tackle these challenges, CELTIC-NEXT has initiated a collaboration project that focuses on devising new ways to make electricity grids more secure. Electricity grids are becoming increasingly digitised and connected with IoT sensors and control units. But the nodes have limited capacity and are vulnerable to hacker attacks. Through a new method of connecting them, and using newer technologies like AI and blockchain, the project will explore ways to make the networks more secure and control them more precisely. This project is named CISSAN, and the six participating countries are Austria, Finland, Luxembourg, Spain, Sweden and Turkey.
Clavister is part of the Swedish consortium led by Blue Science Park. The project has received SEK 12.7 million in grants from the EU and Vinnova, which will be distributed to companies and academia. Swedish energy company, Affärsverken will help clarify requirements from the industry side while Blekinge Institute of Technology will contribute academia research and work with other international universities. Clavister, Savantic and Arctos Labs will provide the technology part including AI, cyber security and edge computing. Techinova and AddSecure will provide expertise and technology for electricity distribution networks.
Clavister has strong experience within the energy & utilities sector and already works with large suppliers like Stadtwerke Leipzig in Germany to deliver next-generation network security and identity management solutions. Clavister’s AI-based cyber security solutions are helping critical infrastructure customers like defence, public sector and energy & utilities. AI technology helps to build resilient systems that actively thwart cyber-attacks and self-learn to protect from future cyber threats. Clavister was recently awarded another research project by European Defence Fund.
“CISSAN calls for an exciting mix of industry, academic and cyber security experts, working with counterparts in six different nations to make our electricity grids more secure,” said Nils Undén, Clavister’s CTO. “We are proud to be part of this initiative and be able to work on our mission of making European critical infrastructure more secure and develop a trusted European cybersecurity ecosystem. I look forward to seeing the results of this collaboration and innovation it brings to energy & utilities, a sector in real need of purpose-built cybersecurity solutions as they face heightened threats since the Russian war on Ukraine started.”