The fast growth of IoT applications and Industry 4.0 has meant that more and more machines and devices are becoming connected to the internet, which in turn has led to the increasing need for security across a whole host of embedded application markets – from the protection of intellectual property to the confidentiality, integrity and availability of user data.

Avnet Silica has therefore joined ECSO as a key stepping stone in its strategy to support its customers and help them implement highly effective security in their products. In particular, membership of the organisation will provide the distributor with access to the latest activities within the fields of security standardisation and legislation. In addition, Avnet Silica will be able to convey issues or key concerns from customers – including small and medium enterprises – thereby ensuring that their needs are heard within ECSO.

Avnet Silica has already begun its work as a member of one of the organisation’s working groups – Working Group 1 (WG1), which concerns standardisation, certification, labelling and supply chain management. This working group also comprises a number of sub-working-groups (SWGs) covering various fields, including the certification and evaluation of a wide range of devices from simple secure ICs through to complex end-systems, while focusing primarily on the manufacturing and the supply chain for these cyber-secure products.

Other sub-working groups within WG1 will look at the delivery of cyber-secure services via telecommunications and IT infrastructures, including cloud services; and the changes to organisational and IT infrastructures that are required to enable a wide market of companies to deliver services in a secure way.

“As our industry progresses ever deeper into the growing possibilities of the IoT, security becomes ever more critical,” said Martin Milter Technology Specialist Security at Avnet Silica. “Full membership of ECSO will enable us to tailor our efforts in this critical field of cyber security, on one hand enabling us to deliver real expertise to our customers, but also being an information feedback loop for the organisation with our extensive knowhow and market reach, especially in areas such as Industry 4.0, automotive, and in smart city and smart grid applications.”

Background information:

The European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO) ASBL is a fully self-financed non-for-profit organisation under the Belgian law, established in June 2016. ECSO represents the contractual counterparty to the European Commission in implementing the contractual Public-Private Partnership (cPPP) on cyber security. ECSO unites a great variety of European cyber security stakeholders, including large companies, SMEs and start-ups, research centres, universities, end-users, operators, clusters and associations, as well as the local, regional and national administrations across the European Union (EU) Member States, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and H2020 Programme associated countries. The main goal is to develop European cyber security ecosystem, support the protection of European Digital Single Market and, ultimately, to contribute to the advancement of European digital autonomy. More information is available at https://ecs-org.eu/