The Lithuanian Cybercrime Center of Excellence for Training, Research and Education L3CE (www.l3ce.eu) together with the strongest partners in Europe working in the field of cyber threats, launched the EU-HYBNET (Empowering a Pan-European Network to Counter Hybrid Threats) project in a virtual conference on May 12, 2020. The aim of the project is to develop a European network that is able to detect, prepare for and counter hybrid threats. This five-year-long project is funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Programme. The EU-HYBNET project consortium consists of 23 organisations representing 16 European countries. 

The project is coordinated by Laurea University of Applied Sciences (https://www.laurea.fi). Laurea is the leading provider of civilian security education in Finland. It has built a noticeable international and EU funded security project portfolio. Dr. Päivi Mattila, director of the University’s Coherent Security strategic research area, is coordinating the EU-HYBNET project. 

The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE), located in Helsinki, Finland, is the main content coordinator for the project. According to Hybrid CoE’s Director of Research and Analysis, Hanna Smith, working with a versatile group of organisations and experts from the public sector, industry, SMEs, academia and NGOs provides a unique opportunity to develop new tools to enhance societal resilience. 

“We are very pleased that EU countries are becoming increasingly aware that hybrid threats are not some distant and slight “disruption”. The hybrid threats are a real threat to democracies, it is a real weapon that authoritarian countries are developing, using and will benefit in the future to destabilize our societies. Lithuania’s experience in encountering and combating hybrid threats is very valuable in this project”, states L3CE Director Egidija Veršinskienė. 

“L3CE expertise in dealing with a wide range of cyber threats will be very useful in this project. Cyber vulnerabilities are very often used for hybrid attacks. L3CE leads the “Cyber Theme” in this project – there are 4 themes in the whole EU-HYBNET project that will be the main focus. This is a great recognition of L3CE’s competence and experience”, said Evaldas Bružė, L3CE Innovation Architect. 

In the first phase of the project, partners will conduct a gaps and needs analysis  in order to identify and understand the network participants’ requirements, and the obstacles to maintaining and improving their resilience in the face of hybrid threats. “Gaps and needs will be assessed and used for scenario building and training purposes in the following phases of the project”, explains Hybrid CoE’s Director of Research and Analysis, Hanna Smith. 

Project participants are: 

• Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Finland 

• Hybrid CoE, Finland 

• Polish Platform for Homeland Security (PPHS), Poland 

• University of Tromso (UiT), Norway 

• Rise Research Institutes of Sweden 

• KEMEA, Greece 

• L3CE, Lithuania 

• Universidad Rey Juan Carlo (URJC), Spain 

• French Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition, France 

• European Organisation for Security (EOS) 

• TNO, the Netherlands 

• SATWAYS, Greece 

• City of Espoo, Finland 

• Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy 

• National Intelligence Academy M. Viteazul, Romania 

• Netherlands Ministry of Defence, the Netherlands 

• Local Police of the City of Valence, Spain 

• Polish Internal Security Agency, Poland 

• Norwegian Directorate for Civil Protection, Norway 

• Maldita, Spain 

• German Central Office for Information Technology in the Security Sector, Germany 

• Competence Center COMTESSA, Germany 

• Joint Research Centre European Commission (JRC) 

More information:

LinkedIn 

Twitter: @EuHybnet 

About EU-HYBNET 

More information about the EU-HYBNET project can be reached here. 

About L3CE 

The Lithuanian Cybercrime Center of Excellence for Training, Research and Education (L3CE) is a non-profit organization contributing to the strengthening of the capacity and capabilities of Lithuanian and EU law enforcement institutions in the fight against cybercrime. L3CE addresses rapidly changing and emerging security challenges such as hybrid threats, information security, etc. L3CE is active in several European Networks of Excellence (CMINE, ENLETS, SENTER, iLEANET) and carries out national and EU funded projects. L3CE, in collaboration with partners, provides law enforcement agencies in the EU with access to training programs, forensic tools developed by scientists and researchers, the latest inventions, technologies and methods for investigating cybercrime. 

L3CE’s activities encompass two main areas. 

First, L3CE focuses on technologies and methodologies for identifying and stopping cyber, full-spectrum and hybrid threats. The methodologies being developed include both technological tools, as well as social and human behavioral factors. 

Second, another important area involves the uptake of innovation. L3CE develops methodologies to help law enforcement quickly understand, test and begin to use inventions and innovations in their day-to-day work. The localized “innovation factory” model developed by L3CE is receiving strong support by the European Commission and among EU national law enforcement agencies. 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No883054. 

The DRIVER+ Advanced Crisis Management Conference was held in Brussels on the 18th, 19th and 20th of February, bringing together over 300 Crisis Management specialists, academics and technology developers from throughout Europe and beyond.

The project’s outputs, achievements and long-term legacy benefits for all European and international Crisis Management organisations were praised by senior European Commission officials and conference delegates.

The conference was the culmination of several years of intense work across Europe, involving 4 large-scale crisis scenario trials and a final trial/demonstration, technology development and assessments, and the development of a unique Trial Guidance Methodology for testing the best solutions for specific emergency management tasks.
Research was also undertaken to accelerate innovation in Crisis Management throughout Europe, in particular in connection with climate change related-events such as wildfires and flooding as well as medical emergencies such as coronavirus and industrial accidents.

The project has also fostered the establishment of a number of Centres of Expertise to promote enhanced Crisis Management skills and innovation, and set up a pan-European network, the Crisis Management Innovation Network Europe (CMINE) to foster knowledge sharing and cooperation.

DRIVER+ is an EU funded project tasked with promoting and testing new, science-based improvements in crisis management. Specialist speakers attended from world leading organisations, such as the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research on climate change and wildfires, the Red Cross on Psychological First Aid training for volunteers, and Patrick Meier of WeRobotics Flying Labs on the promotion of drone flying and mapping skills among local populations for improved crisis response throughout the non-European world.

The DRIVER+ Trial Guidance Methodology for conducting trials of Crisis Management solutions, is supported by the Test-bed Technical Infrastructure (TTI).

All outputs are free and open source, available from the DRIVER+ website. Other free outputs include the DRIVER+ Portfolio of Solutions – an online database of advanced Crisis Management technologies.

The establishment of a network of DRIVER+ Centres of Expertise to ensure the sustainability of project outputs has been a major achievement, with 7 Centres signing letters of agreement at the conference – Entente Valabre (France), the Main School of Fire Service (SGSP, Poland), L3CE (Lithuania), The Resilience Advisors Network (RAN, Ireland), SRC-PAS (Poland), EASS (Estonian Academy of Security Sciences), and the Austrian Red Cross (ARC).

For more information or to download reports and other project outputs go to: www.driver-project.eu  www.driver-project.eu/final-conference

Cybersecurity is an urgent and major societal challenge. Highly correlated with the digitalization of our societies, cyberthreats have an increasing impact on our lives. It is therefore essential to ensure digital security and strategic autonomy of the EU by strengthening leading cybersecurity capacities. This challenge will require the coordination of Europe’s best competences, towards common research and innovation goals.

SPARTA is a novel Cybersecurity Competence Network, supported by the EU’s H2020 program, with the objective to develop and implement top-tier research and innovation collaborative actions. Strongly guided by concrete challenges forming an ambitious Cybersecurity Research & Innovation Roadmap, SPARTA will setup unique collaboration means, leading the way in building transformative capabilities and forming a world-leading Cybersecurity Competence Network across the EU. From basic human needs (health) to economic activities (energy, finance, and transport) to technologies (ICT and industry) to sovereignty (eGovernment, public administration), four research and innovation programs will push the boundaries to deliver advanced solutions to cover emerging challenges.

The SPARTA consortium, led by CEA, assembles a balanced set of 44 actors from 14 EU Member States at the intersection of scientific excellence, technological innovation, and societal sciences in cybersecurity. Together, along with SPARTA Associates, they aim at re-imagining the way cybersecurity research, innovation, and training are performed in Europe across domains and expertise, from foundations to applications, in academia and industry.

In sharing experiences and excellence, challenges and capabilities, SPARTA makes decisive contributions to European strategic autonomy.