Context

In February 2021, the President of the French Republic announced the national cybersecurity acceleration strategy, which focuses on four main areas:

• Developing sovereign cybersecurity solutions;
• Strengthening links and synergies between industry players;
• Supporting demand (from individuals, businesses, local authorities and the State), in particular by raising awareness while promoting national offerings;
• Train more young people and professionals in cybersecurity professions, where there is a serious imbalance.

In order to guarantee the excellence of French research, this strategy finances a "Programmes et équipements prioritaires de recherche" (PEPR) in cybersecurity (more information here, the scientific steering of which has been entrusted to the CEA, CNRS and Inria, and which should contribute to:

• Launch scientific challenges ;
• Structuring research teams or communities;
• Achieve scientific breakthroughs;
• Develop breakthrough technologies that will benefit all French players in the sector.

The project presented is part of the Systems Security theme of this PEPR and concerns the assessment of the security of digital systems. This is based on compliance and vulnerability analyses to provide recognised proofs of cyber security: it is a fundamental element of digital sovereignty, and of the European autonomy strategy. France has historically had leading experts in this field but, faced with̀ the drastic increase in the complexity of attacks and systems to be assessed, it is now essential to support them with new scientific and technical advances, covering both hardware and software assessments.

Consortium