Wattics energy software is a proud partner of the European Union’s FORTIKA (Cyber Security Accelerator for trusted SMEs IT Ecosystem) project which aims to:
- Minimise the exposure of small and medium sized (SMEs) businesses to cyber security risks and threats, and
- Help SMEs successfully respond to cyber security incidents, while relieving them from all unnecessary and costly efforts of identifying, acquiring and using the appropriate cyber security solutions.
According to FORTIKA’s website, SMEs are typically poorly prepared to defend themselves, their digital assets and their client’s data and privacy against cyber threats compared to large enterprises. Sixty per cent of targeted attacks in 2015 were reportedly aimed at small businesses, while ‘more than 430 million new unique pieces of malware’ have been discovered, with consequences ranging from minor impact on operational efficiency to detrimental effects on the profitability and/or on the supplier – customer – partner relationship.
‘Security by design’
To fulfil its vision, the project adopts security by design hybrid approach that adequately integrates hardware and software with business needs and behavioural patterns at individual and organisational level to: introduce a hardware-enabled middleware security layer as an add-on to existing network gateways; orientate small business users to trusted cyber security services (through FORTIKA’s marketplace) packaged to tailored solutions for each enterprise and further extended to accommodate security intelligence and to encourage security-friendly behavioural and organisational changes. Ultimately, FORTIKA proposes a resilient overall cyber security solution that can be easily tailored and adjusted to the versatile and dynamically changing needs of small businesses. To this end, the project ambitiously aims to make systematic and extensive use of the existing service and product portfolio of security solution providers across Europe.
Role of Wattics
Adopting cloud-based energy management software globally is still a challenge for large organisations due to cyber threats. Lack of technological awareness and apprehensions regarding privacy and security have raised a number of concerns for the utilities and end customers, thereby hindering global adoption. Innovation and trust are key factors in maintaining competitiveness within the market. In this context, Wattics aims to integrate a state-of-the-art security framework to complement its existing security mechanisms, to differentiate itself from the competition and set itself as the leader in secure business software for energy management. As Wattics operates under a virtual IT ecosystem, the company’s backend (APIs, servers, database, analytics engines, etc) runs on Amazon Web Services and not within servers on its premises. When a significant amount of sensitive consumers’ data is handled through a company’s workstations, the need for enhanced data privacy and protection becomes a necessity. FORTIKA will adapt its virtual CS services on Wattics’ infrastructure.
FORTIKA’s consortium comprises of 16 partners: CERTH (Greece), Fraunhofer (Germany), TEIC (Greece), FINT (UK), ENEO (Spain), NEXTEL (Spain), UOM (Greece), TEC (UK), VUB (Belgium), XLAB (Slovenia), HOPU (Spain), MOTIVIAN (Bulgaria), ALKE (Italy), NEME (Bulgaria), Obrela (UK), Wattics Ltd (Ireland). The project will last 3 years, until June 2020.
For more information about the FORTIKA project, visit: www.fortika-project.eu.
