7SHIELD: A holistic framework to protect Ground Segments of Space Systems against cyber, physical and natural complex threats

The project addresses the security and the resilience of EU Ground Segments of Space Systems, meeting the crosscutting
and the sectorial criteria of the EU critical infrastructures (2008/14). The Copernicus era has created a new market with the
massive amounts of satellite data that the ground segments of space systems receive serve to the market and governmental
bodies. A physical/cyber-attack to their installations or communication networks, respectively, would cause debilitating
impact on public safety and security of EU citizens and public authorities. A physical attack on a space ground segment
makes the distribution of satellite data problematic and, on the other hand, a cyber-attack in its data storage, access and
exchange affects not only the reliability of space data, but also their FAIR standards: findability, accessibility, interoperability
and reusability. Current approaches do not fully exploit the recent advances in surveillance mechanisms with robotic
technologies and AI. 7SHIELD will be an integrated yet flexible and adaptable framework enabling the deployment of
innovative services for cyber-physical protection of ground segments, such as e-fences, passive radars and laser
technologies, multimedia AI technologies, that enhance their protection capabilities, while integrating or interoperating with
existing protection solutions already deployed at their installations. The framework will integrate advanced technologies for
data integration, processing, and analytics, machine learning and recommendation systems, data visualization and
dashboards, data security and cyber threat protection. The technological solution is co-designed with first responders’ teams
and contributes to policy making, standardisation and new guidelines for contingency planning and service continuity. The
project will be evaluated and demonstrated in five installations of ground segments of space systems.