Cybersecurity has become one of the defining strategic priorities of our era. Attacks on critical infrastructure, ransomware targeting hospitals, state-sponsored intrusions into government networks — the threat landscape grows more complex and consequential with every passing year. Europe has responded with an ambitious legislative and investment agenda: the NIS2 Directive, the Cyber Resilience Act, and over €1.9 billion earmarked under the Digital Europe Programme for cybersecurity capacity alone.
28DIGITAL sits at the centre of this effort, contributing to eight EU-funded projects that span the full spectrum from technical research and workforce development to operational preparedness, compliance infrastructure, and civil-military coordination.
COcyber (Coordination between the Cybersecurity Civilian and Defence Spheres) tackles a structural gap that few EU projects address head on: the divide between Europe's civilian and military cybersecurity communities. Coordinated by 28DIGITAL, funded by the EU, and backed by the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre, COcyber builds a trusted information-sharing platform — featuring a funding observatory, partner matchmaking, a repository of best practices, and an AI-powered Policy Coach — alongside joint workshops and dialogues on dual-use technologies.
The project has already produced over 35 outputs, including four national case studies on civil-defence cybersecurity collaboration across Hungary, Spain, Lithuania and Slovenia, and a landmark white paper making the case for a permanent dual-use cybersecurity framework that goes beyond what NIS2 currently enables.
CyberHubs (European Network of Cybersecurity Skills Hubs) is a three-year Erasmus+-funded initiative establishing seven national cybersecurity skills hubs in Belgium, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain. The project bridges the gap between university curricula that struggle to keep pace with the market and employers facing acute shortages of qualified security professionals. Each national hub develops a tailored skills strategy, facilitates employer-academia cooperation, and delivers awareness campaigns and hackathons.
CyberHubs has established its seven national hubs across Europe, with the European Cybersecurity Fest planned for October 2026 in Vilnius as its next major convening moment.
The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is reshaping what it means to develop and sell digital products in Europe, and several 28DIGITAL projects are directly building the infrastructure that manufacturers, developers and public bodies need to comply with it.
CONSOLE provides software development teams — especially SMEs — with an automated platform that integrates static and dynamic analysis, endpoint security, and GitHub-embedded workflows, making security a continuous, built-in part of the development lifecycle rather than an afterthought. With the CRA making "ship now, fix later" no longer viable, 28DIGITAL leads both CONSOLE's external validation activities and its exploitation planning, and the project is actively recruiting early adopters.
CURIUM goes further upstream, addressing the compliance challenge for manufacturers of any product with digital elements: its Compliance Continuum — a suite of five integrated tools — guides organisations through self-assessment, risk analysis, lifecycle management, and preparation for third-party certification. With the CRA's main obligations applying from December 2027, CURIUM's helpdesk and training activities are already supporting organisations that need to close the gap between where they are and where the regulation requires them to be.
CUSTODES tackles a related but distinct problem: the difficulty of certifying complex, composite ICT systems that combine hardware, software, AI components and cloud services from multiple vendors. Its Composite Inspection and Certification system enables agile, reusable certification across multiple assurance levels — and 28DIGITAL leads a pilot dedicated entirely to guiding the organisation's ecosystem of over 220 ventures and 600 startups and scale-ups through conformity self-assessments and third-party certification readiness.
CyberSecDome addresses the challenge of detecting and responding to cyberattacks in real time across the complex, heterogeneous infrastructures found in telecommunications networks, airports, hospitals and critical national infrastructure. Its answer is a four-layer architecture combining digital twins, AI-powered security tools — including intrusion detection, dynamic risk analysis and automated penetration testing — and a virtual reality interface giving security teams three-dimensional situational awareness of their entire infrastructure.
The platform is being validated in demanding real-world environments: operational pilots are underway at Athens International Airport and OTE, Greece's national telecommunications operator, with the project concluding in August 2026.
SPECTRO and CYCERONE address the cybersecurity skills shortage from opposite ends of the spectrum. SPECTRO builds the long-term talent pipeline through a double-degree Master's programme spanning seven EU universities, with specialised tracks in advanced cryptography, system security, big data security, quantum-resistant cryptography and software security, supported by a generous scholarship programme — 60 students are already enrolled across its first two cycles. It also offers 15 self-standing online modules on the AI-powered Icarus LMS platform, accessible to working professionals without committing to a full degree.
CYCERONE targets the other end of the urgency scale: SMEs and public administrations that face growing NIS2, CRA and GDPR obligations but lack the workforce to meet them. Its free training programmes — covering governance and compliance, defensive security, offensive security, and foundational cybersecurity — are designed in collaboration with a 15-partner consortium led by 28DIGITAL, with the full portal launching in July 2026.
Taken together, these eight projects represent a 28DIGITAL cybersecurity portfolio that is both technically deep and strategically broad — addressing everything from immediate operational readiness and compliance infrastructure to the long-term foundations of a secure, trusted European digital economy. In a domain where Europe cannot afford to be fragmented or reactive, 28DIGITAL's role in connecting research, industry, policy and training communities across borders is more valuable than ever.
To learn more or explore collaboration opportunities, visit 28digital.eu/contact-us.
