Cyber attacks in Italy will increase by 23% in 2024: a virtual expert is coming to help businesses.
Project results presented today PACY (Google, UCBM, PoliMi): a web platform to support small and medium-sized Italian businesses that are victims of cyber attacks, created with the support of Google.org by Cyber 4.0 e Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma
43% of Italian SMEs have no security managerThe project will provide an indispensable tool to simplify the lives of SMEs affected by cyber attacks by providing immediate assistance.
Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and Google: the new Cybersecurity Seminars Program was also presented, which aims to provide essential practical and theoretical skills to face the challenges of cybersecurity
Rome, 29 January 2025 - A web platform to support Italian small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) affected by cyber attacks, accessible even to those without extensive technical expertise. An indispensable tool for improving the cybersecurity posture of SMEs, it can provide immediate assistance in the event of a crisis.
From the collaboration between Google.org, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and Polytechnic of Milan the PACY platform is born (Pro-Active Cybersecurity), presented in Rome at the Faculty of Engineering of theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma during the “Cybersecurity 5.0” event in the presence of Martina Colasante; Government Affairs & Public Policy Manager of Google Italy, of teacher Roberto Setola, president of the Degree Course in Intelligent Systems Engineering UCBM; , Matthew Lucchetti director of the Cyber 4.0 Competence Center; Francesco Carioti, director of the institutional relations and external relations division of the National Cybersecurity Agency ACN; Mario Breccia, Deputy Director of Information for Cybersecurity at NATO; Lorenzo Benigni, vice-president of Unindustria with responsibility for safety; Ivan Gabrielli, director of the Postal Police and Cyber Security Service; di Luca Faramondi, coordinator of the master's degree in Cybersecurity Management UCBM; from Filippo Silvestri, Chief Business Development Officer Cyber 4.0.
The platform aims to give support for one of the weak points of the Italian production system: in fact, almost all of the companies in the beautiful country are small or medium-sized but the 43 percent of them do not have an IT security manager (according to the Grentz 2023 report).
The growing number of attacks, calculated by Clusit (Italian Association for Information Security) in 1637 in the first half of 2024 alone with an increase of 23 percent compared to the previous year, One increased use of malware (34 percent of attacks) and a significant increase in DDoS attacks (which reach 27 percent in Italy) make it more urgent to provide concrete answers in order not to impoverish the Italian productive and employment fabric.
The platform will guarantee immediate assistance: a virtual expert created with tools Artificial Intelligence (AI) and trained on the basis of advice collected from industry experts, will be available to businesses by providing advice and making existing resources and procedures online more accessible for an initial phase of assistance to businesses hit by a cyber attack.
Thanks to an intuitive interface that uses natural language The small business, immediately after the IT incident, will be guided through a support process capable of determining the type of incident, guiding the user through the preliminary operations necessary to limit the impact of the attack, and finally to facilitate the compilation of reports on the event.. Thanks to the platform documents and files will be uploadable directly from the chat to ensure a faster and more precise analysis of the attack. It will be possible to automatically generate reports to be presented to authorities such as the Postal Police, the Privacy Authority, etc.
Alongside the PACY platform, the joint laboratory was inaugurated during the event UCBM – Cyber 4.0 CyberSHOT (Cybersecurity laboratory for Systems, Health and Operational Technologies), the result of the collaboration between theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and the Cyber 4.0 Competence Center. The laboratory has a particular focus on Operational Technologies, e-health systems and critical infrastructuresThe laboratory's goal is to make cybersecurity research available to companies by developing projects and developing research roadmaps.
UCBM also presented, with the support of Google.org, the new Cybersecurity Seminars Program, An initiative selected by Virtual Routes as one of the best in Europe in the field of advanced training. This prestigious recognition confirms the excellence of UCBM in cutting-edge training and its commitment to growing young talent in the cybersecurity sector.
The program, aimed at students from technical institutes or universities, aims to provide essential practical and theoretical skills to face the challenges of cyber security. Thanks to the funding of 330.000 euros from Google.org, fully covered scholarships are available, making this training opportunity accessible to young talents interested in pursuing a career in the cybersecurity sector.
The program will have three editions and will involve a total of 75 students and 100 SMEs. Students will follow a course that offers a combination of theory and practice, with the aim of supporting the SMEs involved in the project during a period of shadowing.
Dichiaration of Matthew Lucchetti Director of the Cyber 4.0 Competence Center
Applied research into the cybersecurity of OT technologies plays a crucial role, especially in the Italian healthcare sector, where the integration between IT and OT is increasingly important. The initiative inaugurating the CyberSHOT laboratory today, the result of joint investments between Campus Biomedico University and our Cyber 4.0 Competence Center, aims to identify tools and systems to better protect critical infrastructure, such as hospitals and connected medical devices, ensuring service continuity, protecting sensitive data, and patient safety.
Thanks to the funding provided by the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, we want this laboratory to actively contribute to the development of innovative solutions to counter emerging threats, strengthen the resilience of the healthcare system, and promote a culture of security essential to addressing future challenges.”
Dichiaration of Roberto Setola, President of the Degree Course in Intelligent Systems Engineering UCBM
"Today is an important day for the Intelligent Systems Engineering course at theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. We are growing in studies and projects related to Cybersecurity so much so that we can announce today the opening of a new laboratory in collaboration with the Ministry for Business and Made in Italy and the Cyber 4.0 competence center, and to be able to share an important path with Google on the topics of training and support for SMEs in the field of cybersecurity. "
Dichiaration di Lorenzo Benigni, Vice President of Unindustria with responsibility for cybersecurity:
We must work to build an advanced security culture: cybersecurity must become an integral part of corporate culture, as it is a competitive asset. For this reason, we must support businesses, especially SMEs, by providing the necessary skills and tools. NIS 2 requires us to raise the bar for our companies' cybersecurity, but the cybersecurity sector in Lazio, as we have seen today, represents excellence, and this will certainly help us meet the challenge.
