Guardtime, FCC to develop better cybersecurity for nuclear plants

Guardtime and Future Cities Catapult (FCC) said late last week that they will team up to develop cybersecurity solutions for U.K. infrastructure.

The focus of this project will be cybersecurity around nuclear plants, in the wake of a report from U.K.-based think tank Chatham House indicating the possibility of a lack of protection in cyberspace within the nuclear industry.

Cybersecurity developments also would be utilized at flood-defense facilities and on the electrical grid. Development will initiate application building to ensure and facilitate reliability, resilience and overall security.

"Guardtime's unique permissioned blockchain approach to large-scale system integrity has tremendous potential to enhance the security of U.K.-critical infrastructure, and we are excited to work with the Guardtime team to build solutions that will play a key part in the government's industrial strategy and showcase to the world how cities can be smarter in the future," Catherine Mulligan, head of Digital Strategy and Economics with the FCC, said.

Guardtime  Chief Technology Officer Matthew Johnson said cyberattacks on critical infrastructure sites are increasingly possible as society becomes interconnected with these pieces of infrastructure. The company developed the Keyless Signature Infrastructure (KSI), which is capable of verifications of time, authenticity and location over any time frame.