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The world of cybersecurity does not speak Italian and this is a problem that our country has been dealing with for a long time. All Italian companies and institutions have learned the hard way that they have to defend themselves from criminals, but still few know that even “friendly” governments tend to put their ears a little too close to data that should remain confidential. And if this has a “relative” importance for most of the country’s economic fabric, things change if we think of ministries, entities, government agencies and companies of strategic importance.
It might sound like the prologue of a science fiction or political fiction film; instead, we are talking about documented and actual cases: the violations for computer espionage purposes perpetrated by rogue states such as Russia, China and North Korea have been numerous and well publicized, but there is no shortage of similar operations carried out by nations “allied” to the damage to European states.
Already in 2013, Edward Snowden had revealed the details of the Echelon project, a US infrastructure aimed at monitoring the globality of the Net, but there are far more striking cases. In 2020, for example, a joint investigation by the Washington Post and ZDF had brought to light Operation Rubicon, a plan devised by the CIA to allow the USA and Germany to spy on states around the world using software whose Italy used it extensively in its ministries, so much so that it represented the third world market for the company that produced it. In 2017 another scandal broke out, this time located in Germany, which again saw the United States in the role of spies against the Allies. It would therefore be nice to be able to decide to turn to local producers to keep our data safe, but many pieces are missing.
In fact, to build an effective cyber security infrastructure, it is necessary to resort to a large number of technologies and products and the offer present in Italy is scarce, if at all. It is not a problem of “capacity” or skills. Yoroi, an Italian company founded in 2014, produces a significant amount of software in terms of functions and effectiveness intended to improve the performance of analysts engaged in fighting attacks. Ermes Cyber Security, a Turin-based IT security company, has created a Browser security platform which has been included by Gartner among the 15 best companies in the new “browser security” category and is also the only European one of the whole group. Its product allows users to browse safely avoiding the threats that attack it from the Web by filtering phishing sites to malicious sites that lead to downloading malware. SGBox, on the other hand, is a Milanese company that produces a SIEM, a platform that collects all the alerts from the various security systems in a company, much appreciated both in Italy and abroad. Its effectiveness is particularly appreciated in the Middle East where it is establishing itself throughout the area of Arab countries. Endian, on the other hand, shows that it’s not even a question of foresight. In fact, the South Tyrolean company has been producing firewalls since 2003. These devices are designed to prevent intrusions by cyber criminals and can count on an incredibly vast community that provides experience and assistance to anyone in need.
Finally, we can say that it’s not even a money problem. When a company has an interesting project and demonstrates that it has the skills, funds are not slow in arriving as happened with Gyala, an Italian startup that has created an all-round security platform based on artificial intelligence. Able to cover both IT and production areas, last year it achieved a 5 million euro round of loans which allowed it to consolidate its growth path by making use of the experience gained in the military sector. It is the only fully operational Italian xDR and network traffic analysis platform and together with all those previously mentioned it demonstrates that from a technical point of view there is no shortage of talent in our country.