CYBEREXCELLENCE
Objective of the project
CyberExcellence is a research project that aims to position Wallonia as a major player in cybersecurity on the national and international territory. It is part of the CyberWal Strategic Innovation Initiative (SII), which brings together research, training and innovation stakeholders.
CyberExcellence will conduct upstream research (TRL 2-4) for applied purposes. The consortium will ensure that all research activities can move to the innovation stage until the start of a venture. To achieve this goal, the consortium will identify the challenges faced by those involved in the socio-economic fabric and identify the research needed to meet each challenge. The consortium will then extract the research results that will lead to “hardware” or “software” components that can be used for demonstrators. Challenges will be collected several times (2 year cycle) and objectives will be adapted accordingly.
The objective of CyberExcellence’s research activities is therefore to establish a unique core of tools to implement solutions based on efficient and thoughtful cybersecurity with a competitive advantage for Wallonia recognized internationally in terms of following:
- Cybersecurity to design with the objective of securing the system before it goes to market. This risk-minimizing approach is promoted and even required by the GDPR and NIS and NIS2 directives. This will align research with the needs of the European agency ENISA.
- Cybersecurity at the execution and more particularly the detection of current attacks in order to counter them as quickly as possible; This WP will particularly benefit innovative concepts such as energy communities or the very vulnerable 5G.
- Compliance with the GDPR, ethics and anonymisation of data in order to participate in the European Commission’s open data policy. The presence of a strong legal and ethical component within the project is indeed necessary.
- Data encryption and storage on a cloud as virtuous and independent of foreign interests as possible. The goal is clearly data sovereignty.
- Training and awareness through cyber ranges. Training must be an opportunity to instill new cohesion within the company’s teams and communities.
The CyberExcellence project is funded entirely by the Walloon Region.