Experts from Vicomtech and Ikerlan analyse the future of security in industry 4.0

The “I ÉGIDA Forum: The future of security in industry 4.0” on the challenges and solutions in cybersecurity that are being developed by R&D&i centres to transfer technology to companies, was held at end of April. The event was organized by Fidesol, one of the four R&D centres that make up the ÉGIDA Network of Excellence, created a year ago within the Cervera Program for Technological Centres of CDTI, the Centre for Industrial Technological Development. This network is also participated by Gradiant and the BRTA, Basque Research and Technology Alliance centres, Ikerlan and Vicomtech.

The development of artificial intelligence, big data, algorithms and the interconnectivity of systems and devices is one of the great challenges facing the business fabric, which is involved in an urgent and necessary process of reconversion, as the Covid’19 pandemic has evidenced.

ÉGIDA works on four objectives to develop secure information systems which allow increasing confidence against cyber attacks. They are focused on cryptography technologies applied for the protection of confidential information, digital identity, privacy for the prevention of fraud, security in disruptive techniques and their use with technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), Artificial Intelligence or Blockchain.

The 'I ÉGIDA Forum: The future of security in industry 4.0' has been developed online and has had, among others, the participation of Raúl Orduna, Director of Digital Security and Cybersecurity at VICOMTECH, and Rosa Iglesias, researcher in the cybersecurity area of IKERLAN. Orduna highlighted "the improvements obtained in biometric identification through the use of machine learning techniques, as well as the advances made in protecting against identity theft and safeguarding privacy."

Rosa Iglesias pointed out that “from IKERLAN we have made progress in defining the processes or tasks that are necessary in the development of a cybersecurity system throughout the different stages, from the conception of the idea to the certification by a competent authority. All this allows us to accompany companies in the definition of cybersecurity procedures and in the development and evaluation activities of components or systems, as well as generating the necessary evidence to tackle a product certification process”.

CDTI strategic lines

The forum also had the intervention of the director of CDTI, Javier Ponce Martínez, who has advanced that the next call for the Cervera Program will focus on the generation of ecosystems between SMEs and networks of excellence such as ÉGIDA to facilitate the transfer of technology that is being investigated and developed, "a technology that responds to the real needs of the industry and the business fabric". The call, which is scheduled to launch after the summer, "will be reinforced with additional funding from European reconstruction funds and provides for the hiring of doctors in the companies that develop these projects."

The event also featured speeches by the Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Granada Óscar Cordón, the Director of ETSIIT and Professor of Telematics Engineering at the University of Granada, Pedro García Teodoro, and the Head of Infrastructure at Axesor, Luis Márquez, on behalf of the business community, the main recipient of ÉGIDA's research.