Estonia’s CybExer Leads European Consortium to Test IRIS² Against Cyberattacks

Cybersecurity company CybExer is leading a ten-company European consortium developing a test environment for assessing the resilience of secure satellite communications associated with the EU's IRIS² programme.

The project forms part of ESA's IRIS² Low-LEO Pre-Operational and De-Risk Activities Consolidation Phase. It will examine security across the complete communications chain - including satellite links, ground infrastructure and end-user systems - under simulated interference, disruption and cyberattack, allowing vulnerabilities to be investigated without exposing operational networks.

Planned scenarios include satellite-supported drone operations and command-and-control communications in contested environments. The programme is intended to examine how disruption at one point in the network could affect other components and services, rather than testing individual satellite or cybersecurity systems in isolation.

CybExer is prime contractor for the project, working with CGI Estonia, CR14, DamoTech, Hellas Sat, KrattWorks, M3S Italia, Magister Solutions, Rantelon and Spaceit. The consortium brings together satellite, telecommunications and cybersecurity expertise from Estonia, Finland, Greece and Italy, with the project formally launching alongside other ESA Low-LEO activities in September.

The work highlights a separate strand of the IRIS² Low-LEO de-risk programme focused on resilience and security rather than connectivity alone. Alongside projects exploring D2D, IoT and alternative satellite architectures, the CybExer-led activity is intended to establish how prospective services behave under hostile conditions before any such capabilities are considered for operational government and critical-infrastructure use.