SafeHorizon (Grant Agreement no. 101168562)

On March 27th, the European consortium meeting for the SafeHorizon project was successfully held at Madrid’s Center for Humanities and Social Sciences. The event featured prominent participation from various European partners and was organized by the Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection Research Group (GiCP) of the Institute of Physical Technologies and Information (ITEFI) and the Institute of Philosophy, both part of Spain’s Council Superior of Scientific Investigations (CSIC).

During the day, significant advancements and ongoing work related to the project’s objectives were presented. The most notable presentations included:

  • Catch-22: Uncovering Compromised Hosts using SSH Public Keys: Innovative techniques for detecting compromised hosts through analysis of SSH public keys. Presented by Delft University of Technology (TUD).
  • CaaS mappings and CSAM on Tor: Research into Crime-as-a-Service platforms and the distribution of child sexual abuse material on the Tor network. Presented by Tampere University (TAU).
  • DWeXtractor: Advanced Web Scraping to Collect and Analyse Unstructured Data: An advanced tool for collecting and analyzing unstructured web data. Presented by VICOMTECH.
  • Advances in Cyber Attribution based on NLP and Network Infrastructure Analysis: New developments in cyber attribution using advanced natural language processing (NLP) techniques and network infrastructure analysis. Presented by the Council Superior of Scientific Investigations (CSIC).
  • The evolution of Malware and MaaS and Clearweb CSAM Campaigns: Review of malware evolution, the Malware-as-a-Service model, and associated criminal campaigns involving CSAM on open web platforms. Presented by Athena Research Center (ARC) and Data Centric (DC).

A roundtable discussion was also held to explore new strategies and methodologies in analyzing data from Infostealers.

In addition, key aspects of the project were discussed in depth:

  • Ethics and best practices for compliance: Led by the Council Superior of Scientific Investigations (CSIC).
  • Tools for data collection, reference architecture, and data models: Led by Data Centric (DC).
  • Project management and financial matters: Presented by Athena Research Center (ARC).
  • Collaboration with other projects and communication activities (WP8): Presented by Privanova.

The SafeHorizon project continues to advance towards its strategic goals, strengthening European cyber spatial security through detailed research of criminal platforms, optimizing digital intelligence for European law enforcement agencies (LEAs), and promoting European technological sovereignty through safe and effective proprietary solutions.