Author: ubitech

UBITECH supports and sponsors Hack4Energy event, the first energy related hackathon in Greece against energy-related security breaches. This two-day event takes place in Thessaloniki, Greece at October 23-24, 2019 and is organized by the SPEAR and SIT4Energy H2020 projects and is hosted on the premises of CERTH. As a matter of fact, the rapid progression of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) transforms the electrical grid into a new paradigm called Smart Grid (SG). This new reality offers valuable benefits such as distributed generation, self-monitoring, self-healing, pervasive control, two-way communication between utilities and energy consumers as well as better utilization of the existing resources. SG enables the development of smart energy-related applications, considering both efficiency potentials in the local energy production and consumption. However, at the same time, this revolution raises severe cybersecurity issues since SG is characterized by multiple heterogeneous and interconnected technologies. In this context, the SPEAR and SIT4Energy H2020 projects join forces towards co-organizing a hackathon event that will focus on innovative approaches on energy-related cyber-security and end-user engagement, respectively.

Continue reading UBITECH sponsors the S^2 Hack4Energy energy-related hackathon in Thessaloniki

UBITECH and UBITECH ENERGY are hosting the kick-off meeting, in Athens, Greece (October 23-24, 2019), of the FARCROSS project, officially started on October  1st, 2019. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No 864274) and spans on the period October 2019 – September 2023. The FARCROSS project intends to connect major stakeholders of the energy value chain and demonstrate integrated hardware and software solutions that will facilitate the “unlocking” of the resources for the cross-border electricity flows and regional cooperation. The project will promote state-of-the art technologies to enhance the exploitation/capacity/efficiency of transmission grid assets, either on the generation or the transmission level. The hardware and software solutions will increase grid observability to facilitate system operations at a regional level, exploit the full potential of transmission corridors for increased electricity flows that will facilitate transition to flow-based regional market coupling; consider cross-border connections and their specific ICT and grid infrastructure; use a wide-area protection approach to ensure the safe integration of renewable energy sources into the grid; mitigate disturbances; increase power system stability.

Continue reading UBITECH Group undertakes the coordination and the technical leadership of the FARCROSS Innovation Action on regional cross-border electricity transmission

UBITECH presented the ICARUS H2020 project (https://www.icarus2020.aero/) at the European Big Data Value Public-Private Partnership  (BDV-PPP) – Technical Committee, which was a joint meeting with the Big Data Value Association (BDVA) Activity Group and the AI-PPP SRIDA 4th workshop, on 02 October 2019 in Brussels. During the meeting, several presentations were given providing insights and results from the usage of AI and Data technology, including the advanced machine learning and AI technologies that are developed or employed on each project, as well as the challenges, problems and obstacles that each project faced with respect to machine learning and AI platform or ecosystems. Dimitrios Miltiadou presented the ICARUS project’s approach and key challenges faced, focusing on the design of the platform’s architecture in order to deliver an aviation data and intelligence marketplace with secure and trusted “sandboxed” spaces for data analysis.

The first contractual midterm review meeting for the ChildRescue H2020, No 780938, co-funded research project (https://www.childrescue.eu//) took place in Brussels on September 20, 2019. ChildRescue aims at effectively and timely raising collective awareness and instigating instant community action during the investigation of missing children. It is an ambitious project with a social impact that aims to assist the investigation of missing children and the discovery and identification of unaccompanied minors using state-of-the-art technologies and an innovative methodology. The ChildRescue consortium successfully presented the results of the work of the project during the first 18 months of project. UBITECH, as the responsible partner and leader of the privacy and anonymization methodology of the project as well as the leader of the ChildRescue Mobile App and the technical validation and verification of the ChildRescue Platform, presented the ChildRescue Privacy and Anonymization Framework, the first version of the Childrescue Mobile App and assured the delivery of the fully integrated and technically verified ChildRescue Platform, implemented in collaboration with Suite5 and SingularLogic.

The 4th  Plane Pull was held for “The Smile of the Child” on the 18th of  September 2019 in Athens, wherein UBITECH participated, supporting the “Smile for the Child” organization, and was awarded the 3rd Prize for the most enthusiastic team. The event took place in collaboration with Athens International Airport “Eleftherios Venizelos”. It was a truly special event for the airport community and it was organized for the fourth consecutive year at the venues of the Athens International Airport. The 4th Plane Pull in Greece became a reality on the airport’s runway with the participation of 14 teams comprised of 30 people, each one aiming to pull a Boeing 737- 400 from the AIR MEDITERRANEAN fleet for a distance of 20 meters.

The common goal of everyone was to raise funds for the actions of “The Smile” in the field of medical care of children. In 2018 alone, 27.121 children with health problems and their families were supported through the actions of the Organization nationwide thanks to the Mobile Medical Units for newborns and children, the program of Preventive Medicine, carried out by 3 Mobile Medical Units, the support to hospitalized children in Athens, Thessaloniki, Patras, Pediatric Care at Home and the provision of shelter to children with health problems.

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From 9th to 10th September 2019 the first FutureTPM H2020- 779391 project review meeting took place in Brussels. The first day was dedicated to the preparation meeting where the planned presentations were rehearsed. In the evening the partners went out for a common dinner where interesting discussions continued in a more informal atmosphere. The next day, the consortium partners came together with three independent reviewers and the Project Officer (PO) for the first review meeting. At the beginning Thanassis Giannetsos (DTU) and Li Chen (SURREY) as the technical leaders of the FutureTPM project gave an overview of FutureTPM. The consortium reported the current project status, results and achievements as well as the ongoing work in the individual work packages. In particular, UBITECH presented the FutureTPM threat modelling, risk assessment, and runtime risk assessment framework. To this end, research has culminated to the development of holistic risk assessment framework capable of providing functionalities during both design-time, where an initial risk graph of all possible threats and risks are identified, and run-time, where the risk graph can be updated in order to achieve the required security, trust and privacy properties in the case of newly identified (e.g., zero-day) vulnerabilities. The reviewers and the PO were satisfied with the results and provided some feedback and recommendations for the future work. All in all it was a successful meeting and partners are enthusiastic about continuing their work in the project.

UBITECH is participating at the kick-off meeting, in Heraklion, Greece (September 10-11, 2019), of the CyberSANE Innovation Action, officially started on September 1st, 2019. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 833683) and spans on the period September 2019 – August 2022. The CyberSANE project intends to improve the detection and analysis of cyber-attacks and threats on Critical Information Infrastructures (CIIs), increases the knowledge on the current cyber threat landscape and supports human operators (such as Incident Response professionals) to dynamically increase preparedness, improve cooperation amongst CIIs operators, and adopt appropriate steps to manage security risks, report and handle security incidents. Moreover, CyberSANE is fully in-line with relevant regulations (such as the GDPR and NIS directive), which requires organizations to increase their preparedness, improve their cooperation with each other, and adopt appropriate steps to manage security risks, report and handle security incidents.

In particular, CyberSANE will develop a system that addresses both technical and congitive challenges related to identification, prevention and protection against attacks. At technical level, the CyberSANE system will collect, compile, process and fuse attack related data from multiple perspective, through its main four components: The Live Security Monitoring and Analysis (LiveNet) component, the Deep and Dark Web mining and Intelligence (DarkNet) component, the Data Fusion, Risk Evaluation and Event Management (HybridNet) component and the Intelligent and Information Sharing and Dissemination (ShareNet) component. From a cognitive perspective, the system will enable decision makers (e.g. incident response professionals) to better understand understand the technical aspects of an attack and draw conclusions on how to respond.

Continue reading UBITECH kicks off the CyberSANE Innovation Action on cybersecurity incident handling, warning and response

The first contractual review meeting for the ICARUS H2020 co-funded research project (https://www.icarus2020.aero/) took place in Luxembourg on September 10, 2019. The ICARUS consortium successfully presented the results of the work of the project during the first 18 months of the project. UBITECH, as the responsible partner for the overall project management and consortium coordination, presented the current overall progress and key outcomes of the project, as well as the advancements accomplished so far, towards the aim of delivering an aviation data and intelligence marketplace with secure and trusted “sandboxed” spaces for data analysis. Furthermore, UBITECH, as the leader of WP3 entitled ICARUS Platform Design, presented the requirements analysis performed and the technical architecture of the platform, as well as the overall technical details of the ICARUS platform. UBITECH also supported the live demonstration of the ICARUS platform that was presented during the review meeting.

The second and final contractual review meeting for the BigDataOcean H2020 co-funded research project (http://www.bigdataocean.eu/site/) took place in Luxembourg on July 23, 2019. The BigDataOcean consortium successfully presented the results of the work of the project during the last 15 months of project (from M16 up until M30). UBITECH, as the leader of WP5 entitled BigDataOcean Web Platform Implementation, presented the updates in the technical architecture and the technical highlights of the BigDataOcean platform. UBITECH also supported ANEK and FOINIKAS in the presentation of the dedicated technical solutions that UBITECH implemented for them in the context of the project, namely the Fuel Consumption Reduction Investigation Application and the Fault Detection and Predictive Maintenance Application for ANEK and FOINIKAS respectively.

UBITECH is participating at the kick-off meeting, in Genova, Italy (July 23-24, 2019), of the SPIDER Innovation Action, officially started on July 1st, 2019. The project is funded by European Commission under Horizon 2020 Programme (Grant Agreement No. 833685) and spans on the period July 2019 – June 2022. The SPIDER project intends to deliver an innovative Cyber Range as a Service (CRaaS) platform that extends and combines the capabilities of existing telecommunication testbeds and cyber ranges with the most recent advances in telecommunications management and emulation, gamification and serious games training as well as economics of cybersecurity, and uniquely virtualises them to become available as a single and easily accessible solution. The proposed SPIDER cyber range platform rests on three major pillars: (1) cybersecurity testing and assessment, with emphasis on new security technologies; (2) cybersecurity training in defending against advanced cyber-attacks; and (3) cybersecurity investment decision support.

In particular, the vision of SPIDER is to deliver a next-generation, extensive, and replicable cyber range platform for the telecommunications domain and its fifth generation (5G), offering cybersecurity emulation, training and investment decision support. Towards this vision, it features integrated tools for cyber testing including advanced emulation tools, novel training methods based on active learning as well as econometric models based on real-time emulation of modern cyber-attacks. SPIDER supports both self-paced and team-based exercising and acts as a serious gaming repository for multiple stakeholders to share training material and maximise efficiency in delivering complex cyber exercises.

Continue reading UBITECH undertakes the technical management of the SPIDER Innovation Action on 5G cyber range