As small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) pursue digital transformation, their demand for security, privacy, and awareness of cyber threats increases dramatically. SMEs, unlike larger corporations, often lack the resources for implementing robust long-term cybersecurity measures, making them appealing targets for cybercriminals seeking lower-risk options. In addition, with the constant adoption of new technologies and resources, SMEs create numerous entry points for potential cyber-attacks. Each new addition to their systems becomes a potential target for cyber threats, expanding the scope for security breaches. Furthermore, contemporary architectures, often reliant on distributed services, exposed API endpoints, microservices, and containers, present a significantly larger attack surface. Protecting these intricate systems becomes a daunting task as the attack vectors multiply and become harder to safeguard. Finally, SMEs often lack access to frameworks that help them classify risks effectively and ensure compliance with existing regulations. This deficiency can leave them exposed to unforeseen vulnerabilities due to inadequate risk assessment.

Despite the continuously shifting cyber threat landscape, many SMEs lack a systematic approach to ensuring cybersecurity and when faced with cyber-attacks, struggle to recover and ultimately cease operations within six months, while very few have cyber insurance. The impact of these incidents on SMEs is substantial, leading to financial losses, reputational damage, client losses, recruitment challenges, and difficulties in securing new business.

CyberSuite’s vision is to tackle prevailing challenges in cybersecurity services by simplifying the intricacies involved. This involves streamlining the design, configuration, deployment, and management of these services, specifically catering to SMEs lacking dedicated cybersecurity resources. The overarching goal is to bridge market gaps by establishing an easily accessible marketplace for cybersecurity services tailored to SMEs, fostering simplicity and accessibility in high-level security, privacy, and trust. Another key aspect of the vision is to ensure seamless integration and interoperability among diverse cybersecurity tools and services within a unified platform, creating an ecosystem where these solutions collaborate effectively. Support measures for both supply and demand are included, encompassing a maturity and integration phase for solutions and a large-scale demonstration involving four end-users from different sectors. This approach, utilizing a hybrid online and in-person strategy, aims to engage commercial partners and customers. Lastly, the project intends to leverage past EU-funded research outcomes to enhance both the marketplace and the solutions, drawing on previous knowledge and innovations.

Within this frame, the CyberSuite Marketplace aims to bridge cybersecurity service providers and organizations seeking to adopt advanced security solutions in a user-friendly manner and promoting the usage and extensibility of the CyberSuite Framework.