Nicosia: A groundbreaking integrated software system designed to tackle cybersecurity challenges and enhance the resilience of extensive electricity networks across Europe has been developed by the European project COCOON (COoperative Cyber PrOtection for mOderN Power Grids). The initiative, which involves a consortium of 12 partners, marks a significant step forward in safeguarding interconnected energy infrastructures from potential cyberattacks.

According to Cyprus News Agency, the COCOON project, with a budget of £5.8 million, is the first European Innovation Action project funded by the Horizon Europe Program. It is coordinated by the University of Cyprus and the KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence. The technologies developed through the project have achieved Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 7, indicating that they provide a viable solution that adheres to industrial, regulatory, and legal standards.

Over its three-year duration, the project partners collaborated to create a set of cyber-physical protection tools, including a data-driven Early Warning System for anomaly detection. These tools were tested and evaluated at four real-world infrastructure sites in Greece, Spain, and the Netherlands. The sites included energy communities, cross-border electricity transmission systems, energy distribution systems with photovoltaic parks, and a Distribution System Operator substation.

The technological solutions offered by the project provide millisecond-speed protection against cyberattacks for Transmission and Distribution System Operators and energy providers. They also enable operator alerts in less than 5 seconds, ensure threat profiling and attack detection accuracy exceeding 98%, deliver real-time information on the origin of threats, and facilitate resilient control routing restoration and system recovery even under attack or fault conditions. The project received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101120221.