Researchers from Coventry University secure funding to promote cyber security adoption

Date posted: April 14, 2021

a close up of the details of a microchip

Researchers from Coventry University’s Institute for Future Transport and Cities’ (IFTC) Systems Security Group (SSG) have been awarded over £100,000 to investigate the economic drivers in the adoption of computer hardware security amongst businesses and consumers.

Professor Siraj Shaikh, Director of Research at IFTC and leader of the SSG, is the Principal Investigator for the project, supported by Co-Investigators at TU Delft, the Netherlands’ largest public technological university, and Aston University.

The funding is being provided by Discribe (Digital Security by Design Social Science), which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council and aims to promote the commercial uptake of secure technologies, broaden the deployment of cybersecurity and ultimately help protect global economies against cyber-attacks.

The project will identify the greatest costs to businesses and the reasons why commercial stakeholders choose not to implement cybersecurity measures. The team anticipates that the findings will be of use to technology manufacturers as they may be able to address some of these concerns in future designs.

The SSG research team will work in partnership with SEMI, a global industry body for companies operating within the electronic industry supply chain and with experts from TechWorks, an industry association aiming to further the UK’s capabilities as a global leader in future technologies.

Project Lead Siraj Shaikh said:

I am delighted that IFTC’s funding bid has been successful. We are committed to Discribe’s goal of mass adoption of digital security by design technology.
With the UK government having named the future of mobility and artificial intelligence and data as two of the nation’s grand challenges, the importance of having and using secure hardware in line with building public trust in these technologies, will help ensure their widespread adoption.

Laith Altimine, President of SEMI Europe said:

Hardware security is of critical importance for semiconductor manufacturing. It is our hope that this project will enable further informed actions that the electronics value chain can take to strengthen the security and trust of high-end applications.
We trust the experience of the SSG research team in this domain and we are pleased to partner with them on this initiative.