Preparedness support and mutual assistance

Closed

Programme Category

EU Competitive Programmes

Programme Name

Digital Europe Programme

Programme Description

Digital Europe Programme is the first EU programme that aims to accelerate the recovery and drive the digital transformation of Europe.

Worth €7.6 billion (in current prices), the Programme is a part of the next long-term EU budget, (the Multiannual Financial Framework), and it covers 2021 to 2027. It will provide funding for projects in five crucial areas: supercomputing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, advanced digital skills, and ensuring the wide use of digital technologies across the economy and society.

The Programme is fine-tuned to fill the gap between the research of digital technologies and their deployment, and to bring the results of research to the market – for the benefit of Europe’s citizens and businesses, and in particular SMEs. Investments under the Digital Europe programme supports the Union’s twin objectives of a green transition and digital transformation and strengthens the Union’s resilience and strategic autonomy.

Programme Details

Identifier Code

DIGITAL-ECCC-2023-DEPLOY-CYBER-04-SUPPORT-ASSIST

Call

Preparedness support and mutual assistance

Summary

This mechanism aims to complement and not duplicate efforts by Member States and those at Union level to increase the level of protection and resilience to cyber threats, by assisting Member States in their efforts to improve the preparedness for cyber threats and incidents by providing them with knowledge and expertise.

Detailed Call Description

The mechanism should also support mutual assistance between Member States for both preparedness and incident response actions.

The provision of preparedness support services (ex-ante) shall include activities listed below:

Support for testing of essential entities operating critical infrastructure for potential vulnerabilities.

  • Development of penetration testing scenarios for MS cybersecurity infrastructure (including infrastructure of Operators of Essential Services, Digital Service Providers and Governmental entities). The proposed scenarios should cover Networks, Applications, Virtualization solutions, Cloud solutions, Industrial Control systems, and IoT.
  • Support for conducting testing of essential entities operating critical infrastructure for potential vulnerabilities.
  • Support the deployment of digital tools and infrastructures supporting the execution of testing scenarios and for conducting exercises such as the development of standardised cyber-ranges or other testing facilities, able to mimic features of critical sectors (e.g., energy sector, transport sector etc.) to facilitate the execution of cyber-exercises, in particular within cross-border scenarios where relevant.
  • Evaluation and/or testing of MS cybersecurity capabilities (including capabilities to prevent, detect and respond to incidents).
  • Consulting services, providing recommendations on how to improve infrastructure security and capabilities.

Support for threat assessment and risk assessment.

  • Threat Assessment process implementation and life cycle.
  • Customised risk scenarios analysis.

Risk monitoring service.

  • Specific continuous risk monitoring such as attack surface monitoring, risk monitoring of assets and vulnerabilities.

Call Total Budget

€35 000 000

Financing percentage by EU or other bodies / Level of Subsidy or Loan

100%

Maximum grant amount per project: €3 000 000 – €7 000 000

Thematic Categories

  • Information Technology
  • Justice - Security
  • New Entrepreneurship
  • Research, Technological Development and Innovation

Eligibility for Participation

  • Central Government
  • Other Beneficiaries
  • Private Bodies
  • Semi-governmental organisations
  • Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
  • State-owned Enterprises

Eligibility For Participation Notes

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must be legal entities (public or private bodies), established in one of the EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories) or EEA countries (Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein).

Targeted stakeholders
This topic targets in particular national cybersecurity authorities, national cybersecurity competence centres, National Coordination Centres (as defined in Regulation (EU) 2021/887), private entities and any other relevant stakeholders with the capacity to aggregate demand from end beneficiaries, to launch tenders for procurement in the cybersecurity market space and to run downstream calls for allocating Financial Support to Third Parties.

Multi-country consortia composition is not mandatory for this topic but will positively contribute to the impact of the action.

Call Opening Date

25/05/2023

Call Closing Date

26/09/2023

National Contact Point(s)

Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy
Directorate of Research and Innovation
Eleana Gabriel
Telephone: +357 22 691918
Email: egabriel@dmrid.gov.cy