Challenges
Infrastructure Audits
How can we conduct real-time audits of changing cloud infrastructures to govern and control risks?
Secure Cloud
How can we manage what is run in cloud environments and enable movement of code and data between high and low side environments?
Trusted Endpoints
How can we secure networks and endpoints with zero trust?
Industrial IoT encryption
Recent estimates have suggested that around 98% of IoT traffic is unencrypted. This cyber risk is particularly acute for IoT devices in industrial settings, as industrial digitalisation continues at pace.
How can we produce aftermarket solutions that add encryption to IIoT devices? How can we make it simple and cost effective for IIoT device manufacturers to add encryption to their devices’ communications?
Operational technology
As the internet is combined with operational technology, new digital risks are introduced. To realise the benefits of Industry 4.0 in advanced manufacturing settings and protect our most critical national infrastructure, we need robust cyber security.
How can we protect the integrity of this operational technology and make sure cyber vulnerabilities don’t cause any production delays or safety issues?
How can the people managing operations spot a network breach sooner, and react faster?
Protecting SMEs and citizens
Cyber security should be for everyone. We’re looking for solutions that can empower busy SMEs and citizens to defend themselves from digital threats.
We want to raise the level of cyber awareness and basic cyber hygiene. Your solution or idea could involve helping people with using passwords managers, updating devices or creating backups, for example.
Incident response for SMEs and citizens
When a cyber attack happens, how quickly can people and organisations recover?
For example:
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Confirming that incidents are real, rather than part of any fraudulent activity
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Automating incident response functions across devices using machine learning or AI
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Recovering compromised social media or email accounts
We want these solutions to be affordable so that everyone has what they need to recover from a cyber incident.
Better engagement
How can we use innovative ways of engaging people, security teams and the wider business in cyber security to help them put what they learn into practice and create a positive security culture?
How can we make it possible for security best practice to be shared at scale, and how can we track how it’s being implemented across an organisation?
Whether that’s drawing on gamification, immersive learning, behaviour economics or psychology (for example) to:
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amplify the success of cyber initiatives
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build stakeholder engagement
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increase business empathy
Ransomware
Ransomware is the biggest cyber security challenge facing the UK today and the models used by criminals have been honed and strengthened over time.
Organised crime groups invest in collecting information about potential victims while Ransomware as a Service – where off-the-shelf malware is used by cyber criminals – is on the rise.
Through the NCSC For Startups initiative, the National Cyber Security Centre and Plexal will work with startups to help them develop, adapt and pilot solutions that tackle ransomware.
If you have any questions about the challenges, get in touch with Plexal’s innovation team at [email protected]
Malvertising
The online advertising ecosystem offers attackers unique opportunities to commit fraud and deliver malware.