April 2021

Newsletter 1

Cyber-attacks pose more danger to democracies and economies than guns and tanks
Jean-Claude Juncker, 2017
Commission President
Welcome to the first newsletter of the ENCRYPT4.0 project!
ENCRYPT4.0 is a two-year project that has just kicked off in November 2020 and will run until October 2022. ENCRYPT4.0 has been funded with support from the Erasmus+ Programme and over the next two years, project partners will work to engage professionals and hard-to-reach young people in targeted training interventions in the area of cybersecurity. The aim is to strengthen the capacity of manufacturing SMEs to ensure the security of their data in the Industry 4.0 context and to contribute to tackling the cyber security workforce shortage via creating a comprehensive training package.
Since Encrypt 4.0 aims to provide manufacturing SMEs across Europe with a package of tools to combat cyber threats, a pan-European effort is needed, ensured by the extensive expertise of all partner organisations. What is more, the transnational nature of cyber-attacks prompts that cyber crime goes beyond national borders and only through shared knowledge and practices it can be adequately addressed.

ENCRYPT 4.0 KICKS-OFF ONLINE

The first meeting of the ENCRYPT4.0 project team took place on the 25th November, 2020. However, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting took place online. This meeting gave all participating organisations the opportunity to meet each other, where UMFST partner gave a report about the project, the presentations of the goals and the future activities of Intellectual Outputs (IOs) of the project, making plans for how the activities will be developed over the first six-months of the project.
The partner consortium will meet again to assess the progress of the project in May 2021, also online because of COVID-19 pandemic.

WHY ENCRYPT4.0?

The ENCRYPT 4.0 project is based on a belief that although the future of business is digital, yet many executives and Boards of Directors often remain uninformed about the cybersecurity risk. Instead, we need to promote tools and information enabling manufacturing SMEs management to adopt a proactive approach towards cybersecurity by supporting them in the process of analysing, identifying and tackling the cyber risks and threats applicable to their organisations.
Also, promoting interactive project-based learning with regards to boosting cyber-security skills and competences of SMEs’ employees or/and cybersecurity professionals; and strengthening peer-to-peer dialogue in the field of cyber security and giving free access to critical analyses of lessons learned and cyber defence roadmaps.

MEET THE TEAM…

ENCRYPT4.0 is promoted by a consortium of 6 partner organisations from 6 EU countries:
  • “GEORGE EMIL PALADE” – University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Sciences & Technology of Târgu Mureș - Romania (Coordinator)
  • Avantalia Soluciones S.L. - Spain
  • European Center for Quality OOD (ECQ) - Bulgaria
  • FH Joanneum Gesellschaft MBH - Austria
  • Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade (ISQ) - Portugal
  • PCX Computers & Information Systems ltd (PCX) – Cyprus