In Brief

The Challenge

Our aim is to help our national digital assets and digitalised critical national infrastructure remain resilient to cyberattack in a world where cyber-attacks are increasingly weaponised for nefarious purposes. The team leads have partnered with societal impact champion and not-for-profit enterprise partner, the Irish Cattle Breeders Federation (ICBF), who provide cattle breeding information services to the Irish dairy and beef industries. Together the partners have set an ambitious challenge of improving Ireland’s cyber resilience against a digital shock event delivered through a cyber-attack. 

The Solution

In Cyber-Shock, we will leverage cyber-range simulation platforms to assess the cyber-resilience of a national critical asset, the Irish Cattle Breeders Federation infrastructure and develop new methods, models and tools for enhanced prediction and response to a digital shock event in the form of a cyber-attack. In this, we will develop a novel hybrid modelling method for cybersecurity, enabling us to overcome barriers in current approaches and regulatory issues involving on-site data privacy. These models will allow us to gain deeper insights into the origin and impact of a cyber-attack and will also allow us to develop new tools for cyber-prediction and response, leading to greater operational resilience.

The Team

  • Team Lead: Prof. Donna O’Shea, Munster Technological University  
  • Team Co-Lead: Prof. Thomas Newe, University of Limerick  

Societal Impact Champion

  • Sean Coughlan, Irish Cattle Breeding Federation