TDL appointed to key role for European cybersecurity pilot project

Dylan MacdonaldGeneral News

Trust in Digital Life (TDL), a leading, independent cybersecurity membership association, will be taking a key role in the CyberSec4Europe project, announced today by the European Commission.

CyberSec4Europe, worth 16 MEUR, will take place over a 3.5 year period and will bring together some of Europe’s leading research centres to work on innovative cybersecurity solutions including demonstration cases in finance, smart cities, healthcare and transport.

The European Union (EU) is focused on ensuring that it retains and develops the essential skills and partnerships to successfully secure the digital economy, infrastructures, society and democracy.

TDL will play lead roles in two key work packages – addressing security considerations in open banking processes and disseminating and creating awareness of the project and its progress to a wide variety of audiences.

Amardeo Sarma of NEC and Chair of TDL said; “This is recognition of the important role TDL continues to play in building a more secure and trustworthy digital landscape. Our ability to work with leading international players across business and academia puts us in a strong position to engage with this vital work and contribute to the cybersecurity challenges facing Europe.

“We look forward to working with all our partners and to sharing what we learn during the course of the project.”

CyberSec4Europe brings together 43 participants from 22 EU Member States and Associated Countries. TDL will work alongside a number of TDL members, from NEC Laboratories GmbH to leading research institutions Goethe University Frankfurt, University of Murcia and KU Leuven.

TDL Open Banking Co-ordinator, David Goodman, said: “We are looking forward to working with our project partners in tackling security concerns in open banking. The collective practical expertise CyberSec4Europe brings to this task will significantly help progress the financial community’s vision embodied in Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) to the benefit of organisations, businesses and individuals.

“Although both the GDPR and PSD2 share the same objectives – to put customers in control of their own data and to keep that data safe – because they were designed independently of each other, there are apparent deployment incongruities that could lead to security holes and vulnerabilities. There are unresolved issues which are inhibiting the full realization of the objectives of PSD2, which has a key role to play in the drive towards the digital single market in Europe.”

TDL’s involvement in CyberSec4Europe will begin immediately with a project kick-off meeting with partners and a public event taking place on 28 February – 1 March in Brussels.

Download the full press release here