Cybersecurity for maritime autonomous surface ship (MASS) swarm operations

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Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) rely on a diverse and complex array of onboard components for navigation, steering, fuel management, and other operations. Externally, MASS vessels must communicate with swarm neighbours to coordinate movement and send or receive critical mission parameters. A secure, reliable, and efficient communication backbone underpins all MASS operations, which presents an attractive target for attackers seeking to steal data, inject false commands or disable the vessels. As such, it is imperative that the confidentiality and integrity of MASS communications be protected against current and future threats, including attacks from quantum computers.To address the threats posed by quantum computing, researchers in the field of Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) are creating quantum-resistant algorithms but there are significant barriers to the widespread adoption of PQC, the most significant of which are computational and space inefficiency. In contrast to classical cryptography schemes, PQC schemes use larger key sizes and require more clock cycles for computation. In addition, current Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) implementations do not support the use of PQC schemes.This project is focused on Cybersecurity within the maritime industry, a traditional focus transport sector for both Singapore and the UK - both cyber and transport are key focus areas for this funding competition. This application aligns with the funding scope and delivers on the UK's ambitions under the Maritime 2050 Strategy, section 6.3 as a world leader in autonomous solutions and cyber-security.The aim of this project is to develop a practical PQC communication security solution to secure MASS communications and to bring a cyber security solution for maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS) swarms to market within 24 months of the start of the project with end-user demonstrations, demonstrating our commitment to commercial exploitation of this project.This project represents value for taxpayer money, building on our current HAZID from TRL3 to TRL7 and having a commercially saleable Cyber security product in the market within 36 months. AO is seeking venture funding to further engineer and develop an enterprise solution, e.g., TRL 8/9\.This next-generation technology seeks to substantially enhance the existing standards around security and deployed IoT platforms - helping to de-risk the growing cyber threat and to unlock significant new commercial opportunities through swarm operations. e.g., Microsec has contributed to IEC62443 and TR64 standards and will aim to do so with the new PQC technology as well.