How to Protect Public Administration from Cybersecurity Threats: the COMPACT Project

The advent of the Internet has been opening new
opportunities for Local Public Administrations (LPAs) to
improve their efficiency while providing better services to citizens
via an ever larger set of specialized network applications,
including e-government, e-health, and more. Indeed, as a
potential channel of accessing personal information, these
specialized applications also expose the public sector to new risks.
The cybersecurity landscape is changing, and Local Public
Administrations are rapidly becoming an attractive target for
cybercriminals, who might access some sets of personal data or
gain control over smartly operated city resources through LPAs
infrastructures. The consequences of cyber-threats have the
potential to be considerable causing business interruptions, data
losses, and thefts of intellectual property, significantly impacting
both individuals and organizations. This paper provides an
overview of the EU H2020 COMPACT (Competitive Methods to
protect local Public Administration from Cyber security Threats)
project, that aims to increase LPAs awareness, skills, and
protection against cyber threats through risk assessment, gamebased
education, monitoring and knowledge sharing services that
are highly usable, interoperable with major Commercial Off-
The-Shelf (COTS) solutions, cloud-enabled and cloud-ready.