As part of the European Defence Fund’s mission to drive innovation and foster cooperation within the defence sector, the ACTING project is making significant steps in fortifying Europe’s cybersecurity landscape. This initiative aligns closely with the EU’s strategic defence objectives, addressing critical gaps in cyber defence and resilience.

The ACTING project, an advanced European platform and network of cybersecurity training and exercise centres, is a 4-year project funded under the European Defence Fund (EDF). Since its launch in December 2022, the project has reached key halfway milestones. By bridging technology gaps and fostering a collaborative European cybersecurity ecosystem, ACTING is ready to significantly enhance the EU’s cyber defence capabilities, laying a foundation for long-term innovation and resilience in critical sectors.

The ACTING consortium comprises 28 partners from 13 member states, supported by six Ministries of Defence.

About the ACTING Platform

The ACTING Platform is designed as a one-stop-shop for accessing and customising cyber services including:

• Cyber range scenarios, tabletop exercises and content-based trainings
• Simplified access for organisations, especially cyber commands within Ministries of Defence
• Options for designing and requesting custom services from a network of providers
• Streamlined sharing of resources to meet diverse customer needs

Milestones completed by the second year

During the first two years of ACTING, groundbreaking technical innovations have been achieved following the completion of the design phase, leading to the development of the initial proof-of concepts:

• A novel Service/Scenario Development Language for cross-range compatibility.
• Enhanced situational awareness and performance evaluation tools for cyber range users.
• Innovating automated algorithms and methods to evaluate trainee’s performances on cyber range scenarios.
• Simulation technologies to emulate realistic user behaviours in cyber-attack scenarios.
• Advanced methods for federating multi-sector cyber ranges.

The ACTING Platform developments have also achieved significant milestones, including the release of the first iteration of the ACTING Training and Simulation Platform, though not yet fully integrated. Additionally, validation scenarios have been successfully implemented within the cyber ranges provided by the partners, effectively addressing real-world cybersecurity challenges, such as multi-domain and cascading cyber-attacks. Notably, the ACTING team elaborated high-level and component-specific system requirements, encompassing 1,350 functional and non-functional parameters.

As the ACTING project moves into its next phase, it will host several Validation Workshops in collaboration with the involved and interested stakeholders, ensuring continuous development and alignment with end-user needs and readiness for the TRL 7 prototyping phase.

For more information about the ACTING project (https://acting-project.eu/), please contact:

Project Coordinator: Col. Dr. Nikolai Stoianov, n.stoianov@di.mod.bg   

Project Implementation Coordinator: Matteo Merialdo, m.merialdo@stariongroup.eu

Dissemination Manager: Christiana Kyperounta, christiana.kyperounta@8bellsresearch.com

The ACTING project is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.