GEIGER

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 883588 (GEIGER). The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the funding body.

The project will develop a "Geiger counter" for cybersecurity, which dynamically shows the level of current risks for the company, and allows the user to take simple measures to lower the risk exposure significantly. GEIGER also aims at building an ecosystem of competent individuals and organizations that offer help, by collaborating with schools and partners to develop a standardized learning programme, the "Certified Security Defenders".

The Romanian National Computer Security Incident Response Team - CERT-RO is among the partners in this project and is the beneficiary of a non-reimbursable financing from the EU Horizon 2020 programme for the implementation of the “GEIGER” project, code SU-DS03, based on the financing contract no. 883588.

The overall objective of the project is to develop a solution that increases the level of knowledge of small businesses and entrepreneurs on the risks related to data protection, privacy and cyber security.

GEIGER's overall vision is to raise awareness of the risks faced by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises (MIs). These entities must respond to imminent or undetected attacks that may jeopardize confidentiality and data integrity. The solution proposed by this project is to develop an indicator to help these economic entities assess the level of risk to which they are subject, compared to the situation of other entities. This indicator will also include a set of useful tools for the immediate and effective elimination of risks. In order to attract the attention and involvement of SMEs and MI, a training ecosystem for cybersecurity experts will be developed.

The specific objectives of the project are:

Development of the GEIGER Indicator, an easy-to-understand security indicator that reflects the security level of the SMEs or MIs at the time of its consultation. The GEIGER indicator will be adapted to reflect the level of risk of participating SMEs and MIs, accompanied by recommendations for increasing the level of security. Security levels are:
- red - critical, unprotected;
- yellow - medium protection;
- green - protected.
The GEIGER Toolkit is an important component of the GEIGER Risk Reduction Framework. The selected tools are easy to use by users without technical experience. They fall into three categories:
- education modules (awareness, authentication, phishing attacks, strong passwords, GDPR, data protection risks),
- sensors and shields (end-point protection, server protection, network protection) and
- recommendations (scanning for viruses, installing updated versions of operating systems, deleting critical applications)

For the distribution and exchange of data, the GEIGER Cloud will be set up within GEIGER. Participating SMEs and MIs, SME associations and CERTs / CSIRTs will connect and contribute to the development of this database. In the GEIGER Cloud, SMEs and MIs will be able to compare their risk indicators with those of other entities and will receive information directly from the associations they belong to, such as CERTs and CSIRTs.
GEIGER will initiate and develop the GEIGER Education Ecosystem to provide the necessary training for SMEs and MIs. It will cooperate with existing education networks and providers, as well as with "cyber range" entities, to develop the experimental training format. The training programs will include topics such as security, privacy and personal data protection, focusing on the specific needs of SMEs and MI. Candidates who successfully complete the training program will receive a "Cyber Security Experts" certificate.
The GEIGER solution will be demonstrated and validated in complementary case studies from three countries. The case studies reflect three different levels of maturity in terms of reporting obligations to CERT / CSIRT entities.

The project activities are the following:

WP1: Requirements, architecture and methodology

WP2: GEIGER framework

WP3: Training of cybersecurity experts

WP4: GEIGER Validation and Demonstration

WP5: Dissemination and Exploitation

WP6: Project Management

Partners:

University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland	Switzerland
University of Utrecht	the Nederlands
Berufsfachschule BBB	Switzerland
Pädagogische Hochschule Freiburg	Germany
Kaspersky	Italy
Montimage	France
KPMG	Israel
ATOS Spain SA	Spain
Fores Media Ltd (Tech.eu)	the United Kingdom
Schweizerischer KMU Verband SKV	Switzerland
Samenwerkende Registeraccountants en Accountants-Administratieconsulenten SRA	the Nederlands
CLUJ IT	Romania
CERT-RO	Romania
Coiffure Loredana	Switzerland
Haako	Switzerland
E-abo	Switzerland
Braintronix	Romania
Public Tender	Romania