ESA has chosen the Italian Leonardo to build its new operational center for the cyber security of European space resources. The national aerospace giant is in fact prime contractor and head of a team of 19 European companies that will do birth of the new Cyber-Security Operations Center (C-Soc) of the European Space Agency. It’s about a key infrastructure for Europe’s economy and security and will be operational from 2024. Once in the field, the C-Soc will strengthen the cyber protection of European space systems by monitoring and managing vulnerabilities around the clock and enhancing the security of Member States and ESA partners. Leonardo announced today that it has signed a contract with the European Space Agency to design, develop, build, validate and operate, under the technical responsibility of the ESA Security Office, the new Cyber-Security Operations Center (C-Soc) of the Agency born with the objective of protecting European space resources and the related ground segment – control and operations management centers – but also the Earth-Earth and Earth-Space links from cyber threats as well as those among the infrastructures in orbit.
Thanks to a distributed architecture, the new Cyber-Security Operations Center will be able to provide resilient and redundant cyber security coverage, monitoring and managing the vulnerabilities of space systems 24 hours a day and 365 days a year and enhancing the security of Member States. and partner of ESA. “Ensuring the cyber resilience of space resources is crucial for Europe’s economy and security in a scenario characterized by a constantly increasing hybrid threat and by the growing importance of satellite data in accessing fundamental services for the life of all citizens and for the activities of companies, states and global decision makers “underlined Tommaso Profeta, Managing Director of Leonardo’s Cyber Security Division Profeta noted that “as an Italian company dedicated to the protection of technologies for the security of strategic assets, we are proud to be able to put our skills at the service of ESA for the protection of assets and systems. in terms of confidentiality, integrity and availability “.
Leonardo, as Prime Contractor, will be the leader of an industrial consortium made up of 19 companies from Italy, Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Estonia, Romania, relying on the experience gained in protecting over 5,000 networks and 70,000 users in 130 countries from the cyber threat and leading large international projects such as the NATO Computer Incident Response Full Operational Capability (Ncirc Foc) program, which guarantees the security of information and communications at approximately 75 NATO sites located in 29 countries around the world.