The aim of SEGRES, “Developing a resilient Industry 4.0 against complex attacks through research on Artificial Immune Systems – SECurity and RESilience”, is to generate disruptive innovations in the field of industrial cybersecurity. To this end, it relies on research into a new generation of cybersecurity technologies inspired by the functionalities of the human immune system, in order to protect industries from the complex cyberattacks they face and, in this way, improve their resilience and, consequently, their sustainability, competitiveness and efficiency.

Industrial companies are exposed to different types of cyber‑threats which, if they materialise, can impact the business in various ways. These range from data theft or ransom for different purposes, theft of intellectual property, malfunctioning, shutdowns or damage to machines, changes to setpoints that result in products not meeting the required quality, or even discharges into the environment, through to data manipulation that leads to poor decision‑making. These are just some of the incidents detected so far in the industrial environment, several of which have already been classified as APTs (Advanced Persistent Threats). The consequences may be economic, reputational, environmental and, in some cases, may even lead to serious industrial accidents with loss of human life.

Industrial companies can be said to face the same kinds of cyberattacks as other companies with Information Technology (IT) networks, as well as additional threats to their own process/production networks – the so‑called Operational Technology (OT) networks. Behind these cyberattacks there may be specialised groups (cybercriminals, hacktivists, cyber‑terrorists) or even certain nation states. It is evident that cyberattacks in industry are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with greater knowledge of industrial processes, a holistic view of the company, and the use of the latest technological advances such as Artificial Intelligence and, possibly in the not‑too‑distant future, Quantum Computing, in an innovation race between cyber‑attackers and cyber‑defenders.

To address this situation, SEGRES aims to advance the conceptualisation of a new cybersecurity model with a resilient, holistic and comprehensive approach, inspired by the complex human immune system and its different types of barriers and responses, which prevent pathogens from entering the organism. If they do manage to enter, it seeks to reduce them as quickly as possible, learning to recognise them so they can be identified if they reappear in the future and tackled appropriately. The goal is to maintain the organism’s homeostatic balance at all times which, in the case of SEGRES, corresponds to the resilience and sustainability of industry when faced with potential anomalies and cyberattacks.

The conceptualisation and modelling of the Artificial Immune System, which simulates the functions of the different parts of its human counterpart, requires research into technologies related to hybrid models based on Digital Twins that simulate the Artificial Organism (the industrial process under study), as well as research into Artificial Intelligence technologies in their different strands (Machine Learning and Deep Learning), Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), IoT/IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things), Cyber‑Physical Systems (CPSs) and Edge Computing.

To achieve its goal, SEGRES has been structured into five distinct activities, each led by the entities with the greatest interest in driving research in that specific area. These activities are broken down into different tasks in which the complementarity and synergies within the consortium will ensure the success of the proposed research. The identified activities are:

• Research on the Artificial Immune System
• Situational Awareness
• Innate Immunity
• Adaptive Immunity
• Industrial Experimentation

A disruptive innovation of this kind can only be undertaken by a highly technological consortium, specialised in cybersecurity and in the various technological domains under study. The SEGRES consortium is led by S2 GRUPO, a company with national and international recognition in the field of cybersecurity, which constantly faces the need for increasingly cutting‑edge innovations to detect cyberattacks as early as possible and to place the target company in the most secure and resilient state possible, and which therefore has strong expertise in Artificial Intelligence technologies. The rest of the consortium is made up of two other major companies: WELLNESS, a specialist in the different areas related to IoT, CPS and Edge Computing, and IZERTIS, a specialist in DLTs and Artificial Intelligence. The consortium is complemented by three SMEs: CRYPTONICS, specialising in Blockchain; ALIAS ROBOTICS, specialising in cybersecurity in the field of robotics; and CODESYNTAX, specialising in advanced visualisation.

Finally, three research organisations participate in the consortium as subcontractors: TECNALIA, with extensive experience in Artificial Intelligence and Big Data applied to cybersecurity and DLTs; the University of Málaga, an expert in cybersecurity applied to IIoT, CPS and Digital Twins; and the University of León, a specialist in Digital Twins.

This project is funded by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) and supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities under the “Science and Innovation Missions” programme (EXP 00131359 / MIG‑20201041). The project will run from October 2020 to December 2023, with a total duration of 39 months.