Valencia – 13 February 2020. This morning a demonstration exercise of part of the research results of the European project SAURON (Scalable Multidimensional Response Solution for the Security of European Ports) took place in Piraeus. This project is coordinated by the Valenciaport Foundation and co-financed by the European Commission through the H2020 programme.
SAURON’s main objective is to ensure an adequate level of physical and cyber protection for EU ports and to limit, as far as possible, the harmful effects on society and citizens of a combined (physical/ciber) attack.
This exercise, which has been organized by the Piraeus Port Authority at its facilities, has consisted of a pilot test to test the technologies of integration between physical and cyber assets in the face of a possible terrorist attack on a cruise terminal.
The pilot’s dynamic consisted in showing how the SAURON platform works in response to a terrorist attack. This attack has combined, on the one hand, a cyber intrusion, whose purpose was to take control of the computer of the Head of the Control Centre, the CCTV system and the passenger information system, and on the other hand, the objective of allowing armed terrorists access to the cruise ship dock and causing as much damage as possible. During the exercise it has been shown how, thanks to SAURON’s functionalities, the system is capable of detecting each of the threats and providing valuable information to both the Control Center and the passengers to stop the intrusion.
One of the key objectives of this demonstration was the integration of the advanced visualization systems, called “Physical Situational Awareness” (PSA) and developed by the Universitat Politècnica de València and Idemia; the “Cyber Situational Awareness” (CSA), developed by S2; and the system that correlates the events of both systems “Hybrid Situational Awareness” (HSA), developed by AIT and Thales, as well as the communication to the security forces through the Emergency Population Warning System (EPWS) developed by the ETRA Group.
