LEONARDO LAUNCHES EUROPE’S PIONEERING CYBER INTELLIGENCE HUB
The inaugural pan-European virtual hub for real-time dynamic cyber risk oversight has attained complete operational capability. This hub has been crafted by Leonardo for DG Connect, the European Commission’s directorate overseeing digital strategies.
This hub processes and evaluates terabytes of information from sources such as websites, social media platforms, news outlets, databases, and the deep/dark web. This capability is supported by a knowledge repository comprising over 5 million ‘Indicators of Compromise’, digital footprints of cybersecurity incidents managed yearly by Leonardo through the company’s supercomputing infrastructure – which can execute up to 5 million billion operations every second.
Utilizing this data, the hub generates sector-specific threat scenarios (e.g., related to finance, energy, health, or transportation) for DG Connect. This facilitates the European Commission in continuously assessing the level of cyber attack risk against the digital infrastructure across Europe, illuminating potential threat actors, probable attack methods, targeted entities, and their vulnerabilities. This enables dynamic assessment of the potential consequences of attacks on critical infrastructure and services of strategic significance, bolstering European cyber resilience.
Research conducted by analysts at Leonardo has revealed that the most prevalent offensive cyber strategies (such as Ransomware, DDoS, Wipers, Phishing, and disinformation initiatives) surged by an average of 180% in 2022 compared to 2021, emphasizing the urgent necessity for enhanced cyber resilience. Concurrently, as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe has increasingly become a target for hybrid threats, intertwining various techniques and actors. These threats can result in severe repercussions, occasionally affecting national security.
The virtual hub is a component of the EUR 18 million initiative assigned to the industrial consortium of Leonardo and Indra by DG Connect (Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content, and Technologies). The project’s roadmap entails the creation of a physical hub in Brussels, facilitating direct engagement by the Commission on cyber threats. The physical infrastructure will be bolstered by Leonardo’s Regional Centre in Brussels, part of the company’s Global Security Operations Centre. With a decentralized architecture based at a headquarters in Chieti, Italy, and including other operational hubs in Italy, the UK, Europe, and the Middle East, Leonardo’s Global Security Operations Centre oversees over 137,000 cybersecurity incidents per second. To guarantee comprehensive risk awareness and enhance Europe’s response to cyber emergencies, the hub will be interoperable with all entities at a European level tasked with cyber threat evaluation.
