ECHO delivers an organized and coordinated approach to improve proactive cyber defence of the European Union, through effective and efficient multi-sector collaboration. The Partners will execute on a 48-month work plan to develop, model and demonstrate a network of cyber research and competence centres, with a central competence at the hub. The Central Competence Hub serves as the focal point for the ECHO Multi-sector Assessment Framework enabling multi-sector dependencies management, provision of an ECHO Early Warning System, an ECHO Federation of Cyber Ranges and management of an expanding collection of Partner Engagements. The ECHO Multi-sector Assessment Framework refers to the analysis of challenges and opportunities derived from sector specific use cases, transversal cybersecurity needs analysis and development of inter-sector Technology Roadmaps involving horizontal cybersecurity disciplines. The Early Warning System, Federation of Cyber Ranges and Inter-sector Technology Roadmaps will then be subject of Demonstration Cases incorporating relevant involvement of inter-dependent industrial sectors. The ECHO Cyber-skills Framework provides the foundation for development of cybersecurity education and training programmes including a common definition of transversal and inter-sector skills and qualifications needed by cybersecurity practitioners. The ECHO Cybersecurity Certification Scheme provides a sector specific and inter-sector process for cybersecurity certification testing of new technologies and products resulting from the proposed technology roadmaps. The project will develop and operate under an ECHO Governance Model, by which the efforts across the EU Network of Cybersecurity Competence Centres can be coordinated and optimized to provide lasting and sustainable excellence in cybersecurity skills development; research and experimentation; technology roadmaps delivery; and certified security products for improved cybersecurity resilience.

The underlyingassumption of the project proposal, in line with the UN Security Council recommendations (Resolution n. 2178, September 2014) and the Commission “European Agenda on Security”2015-2020(28.4.2015, COM(2015) 185 final), is that in order to contrast successfully violent extremism,what is neededis a more balanced response to terrorism,combining repressive (protective) measures with preventive measures, in a comprehensive approach in collaboration withactors of civil society and the communitiesof reference, based on a firm commitment to respecting fundamental rights, promoting integration, cultural dialogue and fighting discrimination. To this end, a better understanding of factors constituting violent radicalisation in Europe is needed, which aims,through a multidisciplinary analysis,to a comprehensive view of the phenomenon, investigatingits root causes, in order to develop appropriate countermeasures, ranging from early detection methodologies to strategies, ways and techniques of counter-narrative, involving LEAs together with experts and civil society actors at local, national and European level. In addition, it is necessary to acknowledge that violent radicalization,especially in the case of jihadist extremism,goesmainly through narratives that: have specific characteristics and contents; use specific communication codes;are addressed to specific audiences; and spread in a multitude of ways, over the Internet, as well as by means of in-person communication exchanges that take place in families, schools, places of worship, local communities, etc. These narratives havebeen proven effective towards vulnerable groups such as young people, detainees, and people craving for revenge after having experienced what they perceive as injustices, either at personal or group level. Furthermore, due to this multifarious background, such extremism is characterised by single or group terrorist acts also reflecting a variety of influences and motivational dr

The extreme growth and adoption of Social Media, in combination with their poor governance and the lack of quality control over the digital content being published and shared, has led information veracity to a continuous deterioration. Current approaches entrust content verification to a single centralised authority, lack resilience towards attempts to successfully “game” verification checks, and make content verification difficult to access and use. In response, SocialTruth’s ambition is to create an open, democratic, pluralistic and distributed ecosystem that allows easy access to various verification services (both internal and third-party), ensuring scalability and establishing trust in a completely decentralized environment. The distinctive advantages are: a) avoidance of vendor lock-in through access to configurable combinations of various content analytics and verification services (with support for text, image and video content) via standard Application Programming Interfaces; b) distributed trust and reputation establishment powered by blockchain technology, ensuring immutability and auditability, revealing information cascades and empowering an information veracity observatory; c) integration of lifelong learning approach for detection of new paradigms of fake news; d) easy interaction through a Digital Companion that allows convenient everyday access of individual users to verification services from within their browsers. SocialTruth will benefit: a) Individual users to verify the validity of Social Media content and prevent misinformation spread; b) Media organisations, content authors and journalists to boost their investigative capabilities by enabling improved cross-checking of various multimedia information sources; c) Search engines, Social Media platforms and e-advertising networks to improve information veracity and contribute into a more sustainable and quality-oriented web and social media ecosystem.