Cyber security research centre

A £30m research centre aimed at becoming the global leader in cyber security technology has been launched by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT), based at Queen’s University Belfast, will bring together research in complementary fields including data encryption, network security systems and intelligent video analysis.

Using its expertise in these areas, CSIT said it intends to use a ‘converged security’ approach to improve the public’s physical security while also protecting data systems to safeguard private information within network systems.

Prof John McCanny, principal investigator at CSIT, said: ‘Our starting points are mission-driven projects for which we have identified end goals. CSIT also has a strong entrepreneurial ethos. We’re confident that we’ll be able to fast track the development of marketable applications of our technologies to the benefit of UK industry and the wider economy.’

One of the projects the centre is working on is a new type of content-processor technology that is able to undertake real-time analysis of internet traffic to detect and prevent threatening online behaviour.