The ICT Fair for Trust and Security Research was organized by the Olomouc Region under the Czech Presidency of the EU and in collaboration with the EC. Its goal was to give practical information on the FP7 research opportunities and foster the partcipation in the forthcoming call for proposals. The vice-president of the Olomouc Region Mr. Michael Fisher opened the Fair and presented region’s experience in the collaboration with the EC in ICT. The vice-rector of the Palacky University in Olomouc Mr. Michal Malacka talked about University’s participation in European projects on information security.
The Head of Unit “Trust & Security” in DG INFSO of the European Commission Mr. Jacques Bus presented the ICT priorities in the Seventh Framework Program. He outlined that the main goals of the objective “Trustworthy ICT” is the building of Trustworthy Network Infrastructures and Trustworthy Service Infrastructures which are the way to develop the Future Internet as a conglomerate of heterogeneous networks and systems. The infrastructures of secure and trustworthy networks have to make the Future Internet more secure, to allow for monitoring and managing the security threats, to build secure infrastructures and virtual objects. It is important to make experiments, to pay attention to the societal impact and to the interaction between the technologies and the users. Mr. Bus announced the indicative opening date of the next Call for proposals is 31st July 2009 and the submission deadline is 3rd November 2009.
Useful information and some advice on how to prepare successful project proposals was presented by Mr. Ives Paindaveine from the DG INFSO, Unit 5 “Trust & Security.” He underlined the significance of the well structured consortium and the clear abstract and contents of the proposal. Proposals are submitted only electronically and they can be updated until the deadline. After the deadline the evaluators can read the proposals remotely and check their contents. The final evaluation is done in Brussels where all evaluators give their final marks.
Mr. Paul Drath from Singleimage Ltd., a training company for the European framework programs, gave the audience valuable advice about the preparation of project proposals. He directed the interested participants to web sites and tools where they could search for partners, check the financial indicators of their proposals, and estimate the allocated budget. Some useful notes were given of what to do and what not do in writing a proposal.
The work of the Fair continued in three parallel sessions. The Thematic Session „Secure and Trustworthy Network Infrastructures” was moderated by Dr. Todor Tagarev (IPP-BAS). Six presentations were given of ongoing FP7 projects in the objectives “ICT Security” and “Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP)” and some past experience. After the introductory notes of Dr. Boyanov (IPP-BAS) about the session and the FORWARD Project, Luigi Romano (University of Naples “Parthenope”) presented the STREP project INSPIRE (Increasing Security and Protection through Infrastructure Resilience). The project objectives are to identify and assess the vulnerabilities of SCADA systems, to determine dependencies among different infrastructures, to propose a self-reconfigurable architecture, and to apply intelligent techniques for reconfiguration. Salvatore D’Antonio (CINI) presented the STREP project INTERSECTION. It is directed to assessment and classification of heterogeneous networks’ vulnerabilities aiming at building a database for them, constructing and applying security techniques, contributing to the standards for information security which could be implemented by all telecommunications operators, and make a roadmap of security-enhancing strategies. Piotr Kijewski (NASK/CERT Polska) presented the IT security projects where NASK and CERT Polska are involved. Based on a sensor network which acquires data from honeypot networks, firewalls, darknets, etc., threat analysis and data enrichment are made in order to develop effective countermeasures. The other goal of the projects is to stimulate information sharing and alerting about incidents and attacks. The WOMBAT Project was presented by Corrado Leita (Symantec Research). Data on attacks is collected, then the attacks are prioritized and the defense level of networks is assessed. The current defense techniques are also estimated. To share his experience from a successfully completed FP6 project, Prof. Miloslav Dusek (Palacky University) presented SECOQC (Development of a Global Network for Secure Communication based on Quantum Cryptography). Quantum cryptography is used to enhance network security. The project has a contribution to the quantum key distribution (QKD) technology, to the development of the network concept, to the development of interfaces. It initiated the QKD standardization. Dr. Tagarev presented a methodology for assessing vulnerabilities and planning measures for critical infrastructure protection (CIP). The methodology is aimed at supporting the decision making process in the CIP. By clear identification of the main sectors and critical assets, identification and classification of the threats, assessment of vulnerabilities, interdependencies, and risks, the best measures and risk mitigation strategies can be sought for and strategy and policy for CIP can be built.
There was an interesting discussion about all presented projects during the thematic session where questions were asked about the applicability of the presented ideas, the difficulties in reaching the goals, the achieved results to date.
At the end of the Fair the outcomes of the three parallel sessions were summarized.
The opinion of the Project Officer Dr. Massimo Ciscato and of the participants was that the Fair on Trust & Security Research was successful. The presentations concerned interesting research areas, useful experience and new questions that require answers from the IT security community. Many useful contacts were made between the participants. Some practical advice was shared about how to prepare a successful project proposal that can pass the EC evaluation procedures.
Tags: thematic session
