Welcome to the Second volume of NATWORK’s Newsletter, featuring all the latest news of the 6G technologies, orchestration tools, and the security and sustainability that NATWORK project entails. NATWORK is a project funded by Horizon Europe - 6G SNS, SERI and UKRI focusing on the groundbreaking Research and Innovation Action designs and implementing an end-to-end service deployment and management platform for next generation networks and services. These innovative activities have been identified by the 15 partners of the project that provide valuable input throughout the timeline of the project. Below one can see the NATWORK’s progress regarding D&C activities. 

The 3rd Plenary Meeting is now in history! Thank you all the partners for their attendance in the physical meeting that held on the 3rd and 4th of December 2024 in Budapest, Hungary. This engaging two-day event served as a significant landmark, bringing together all 15 partners in ELTE premises. NATWORK is a novel bio-inspired cybersecurity and resilience framework for networking distributed systems that transcend a single administrative domain and cross a heterogeneous fabric of resources. As time progresses, more detailed discussions were conducted focusing on NATWORK’s Use Cases and the overall Architecture of the project. By the end of the event, six-month objectives per work-package and for the whole project were identified. We are looking forward to the upcoming events! 

All partners of NATWORK project advance the project and disseminate project results through all available forms, including events, conferences and exhibitions. As far as the events are concerned, NATWORK partners were active participating in several events and workshops in the last six months (July – December 2024). More specifically, event engagements were through presentations and / or invited speeches by the related partner/s each time. In addition, a workshop was organised (The 4th International Workshop on Safety and Security Testing and Monitoring) and the audience involved was more than 30 participants. Below one can see the related events / workshops related to NATWORK project: 

EuCNC & 6G Summit, June 2024, Antwerp, Belgium 

NATWORK Project participated in EuCNC & 6G Summit 2024 that was held from June 3-6 in Antwerp, Belgium.  Dr. Antonios Lalas from Centre for Research & Technology Hellas (CERTH) presented NATWORK Project at the speaker’s corner showing the vision, the objectives and the rationale of the project. Colleagues from NATWORK’s consortium were also present at the EuCNC & 6G Summit including Dr. Ioannis Markopoulos from NOVA, Dr. J. Joaquín Escudero Garzás from Gradiant and Dr. Francesco Paolucci and Mr. Igor Barsanti from CNIT - Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni. 

Some images of the EuCNC & 6G Summit are displayed beneath: 

The 4th International Workshop on Safety and Security Testing and Monitoring (STAM), July 2024, Vienna, Austria 

Edgardo Montes de Oca from MONT co-organised the 4th International Workshop on Safety and Security Testing and Monitoring (STAM 2024)  workshop from July 30 to August 2, 2024 in Vienna. The workshop was hosted by the International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES2024). The STAM workshop tried to answer how miss-behaviours and attacks modeling can help users understand the occurrence of malicious behaviors in order to avoid them, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of the existing models. Furthermore, the workshop tried to tackle the complexities of security testing and monitoring in distributed environments. 

European Cyber Week 2024, November 2024, Rennes, France 

MONT was participated in the European Cyber Week 2024 event that held between the 18th and the 21st of November. It hosted an information booth featuring a collaborative showcase of relevant initiatives on cybersecurity. Insights into its innovative penetration testing, cyber threat intelligence, and AI-based anomaly detection solutions were provided throughout the event. 

Publications 

Partners of NATWORK have provided several publications, both in academic journals and related conference proceedings. Within the academic papers pertinent discoveries, trends, or insights related to the NATWORK project are brought up. These studies discuss the overall status of the NATWORK as well as the subsequent phases of the project. Up to now there are 18 submitted publications, 12 of them in the last six months of 2024!   

White papers / Press releases 

Press releases that have been already published promote NATWORK’s activities to wider audiences. They contribute to the awareness of the NATWORK project and raise interest in the related activities for the project. Furthermore, inform stakeholders about the status and progress of the NATWORK project. Two press releases have been issued in the last six months.  

• Gürkan Gür from ZHAW in an interview in Swiss IT Magazine, amongst other things, identified the NATWORK project’s scope that is to lay the groundwork and implement the first economically realistic, energy-efficient and viable bio-inspired AI-based 6G cybersecurity and resilience framework for intelligent networks and services. 
• Mays Al-Naday from UESSEX, explained NATWORK in a white paper with AIOTI titled “AI in Energy”. The NATWORK project explores the intersection of AI, 6G technology, and cybersecurity, aiming to develop energy-efficient AI cybersecurity solutions. This initiative seeks to protect AI-enabled 6G services from energy-oriented sustainability attacks, ensuring the resilience and security of future energy systems.