Security by Simplicity (SbS)

Strongly committed to continuous innovation and to investing in the countries where it operates, Portugal Telecom positions itself as a future-bound telecommunications operator. Continued investment in education, talent, training, technology and a strong human resource policy together with the need to have available best in class skills, technologies and knowledge in terms of cyber-security, led PT to associate itself from the start to the Carnegie Mellon | Portugal program (http://www.cmuportugal.org/) as prime Industry Partner in order to:

• To train and qualify managers of excellence in terms of cybersecurity, with one of the best universities in the world;
• To recruit talent specialised in cybersecurity and information intelligence;
• To develop and reinforce the link to Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.cmu.edu/) and the Portuguese Universities with research centres in cybersecurity in order to kick off research projects that address some of the major problems of the real world;
• To promote scientific and technological cooperation with CyLab ((http://www.cylab.cmu.edu/) in order to obtain technology transfer and access to the best practices and trends.

This initiative comprehends a close collaboration between Portuguese Universities, prestigious Carnegie Mellon University and several national companies in the domain of Information and Communication Technologies, an aims to kick off world-class educational and research actions.

Our collaboration in this ambitious program contributes to reinforcing a culture of valuing innovation and Research & Development (R&D) at Portugal Telecom as well as promoting innovative projects that contribute to strengthening scientific and advanced research capabilities in Portugal. It is worth recollecting that 2008 saw PT invest more than Euro 150 million in innovation, research and development which correspond to 2% of revenues.

In terms of human resources, PT’s involvement in the CM|Portugal program currently comprehends 15 Professional Masters’ degrees and a student who is getting a Doctoral degree in Information Security. This is a number that will foreseeably increase over the next few years, as a function of the scholarships to be granted in the future.

In order to optimise this know-how and to gain synergies, PT has decided to organise these resources, talent and skills in the scope of a structure that operates in a similar and transversal way in terms of the different PT companies and market segments – PT Security Lab. This is a concept that aims to support the offer in terms of cybersecurity products and services in the market, provide the company with a sole centre of excellence that leverages technical-scientific cooperation with CyLab and consequently position

The value proposition of the PT Security Lab is based on the conception and design of solutions that simultaneously comply with the highest security standards, do not interfere with or complicate the normal life of organisations and people, being therefore its motto: Security by Simplicity (SbS).

The main guidelines of operation of the PT Security Lab are:

• Secure Mobile Networks and Systems
• Secure Computing Platforms
• Secure Software Engineering
• Secure Home Networks and Computing
• Security of Cyber-Physical Systems
• Security Usability and Privacy Techniques
• Advanced systems for security event monitoring, co-relation and viewing
• Detection and prevention of internal attacks (fraud and information theft)
• Detection and prevention of external attacks (“bot nets”, spyware, …)
• Security and risk metrics and models

In the short term, PT Security Lab’s priority shall be the launch of an innovation agenda to address in an active and objective way the cybersecurity challenges of the main domestic information infrastructures and critical services. And how? Through the development of the partnership between CyLab - one of the most renowned labs in the world in the field of Cybersecurity R&D – and the main Portuguese research groups in the domain of infrastructure and critical system security.
For further information, please send an email to: ptsecuritylab@telecom.pt.