A new research centre aimed at tackling cyber attacks has been launched in Cardiff.
The Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Analytics has been set up by Airbus Defence & Space and Cardiff University, located at the university’s School of Computer Science and Informatics. It’s the first centre of its kind in Europe.
The research carried out will aim to protect corporate IT networks, national infrastructure and intellectual property, along with data analytics and artificial intelligence for cyber-attack detection.
The university has been awarded £2 million to develop and create software that is able to detect cyber threats.
“Cyber security analytics is about improving our resilience to cyber-attacks through data modelling to detect and block malicious behaviour before it causes its full impact,” said Dr Pete Burlap, the centre’s director.
“But (it’s) also about understanding what motivates the behaviour, what its likely impact will be, and how to communicate security alerts among decision and policy-makers.”
Dr Kevin Jones, head of cyber security innovation at Airbus, said collaborating with universities was “a key approach in the future protection of critical systems”.
He said the centre would enable the rapid transfer of research into operational activities and ensure researchers are able to access the latest techniques and data.
Cyber security is a priority research area at Cardiff University, with collaborative projects receiving more than £5 million in funding from UK Research Councils (EPSRC, ESRC), Welsh Government (Endeavr Wales) and Industry (Airbus).
