Operationalizing Cyber Resilience in Critical Infrastructure: Protecting the Lithuanian Emergency Medical Services, (No. S-ITP-25-13)

Project No. S-ITP-25-13
Project title: „Operationalizing Cyber Resilience in Critical Infrastructure: Protecting the Lithuanian Emergency Medical Services”.
Project leader: Dr. Giedrė Sabaliauskaitė
Project duration: from 2025-09-01 to 2027-06-30

Summary: This project offers an alternative approach to cyber security and resilience of Critical Infrastructure (CI), by integrating them into a framework to enhance the protection, continuity and quality of vital services required for the normal functioning of society. This integration opposes current methods that approach them indistinctly, ignoring the fact that while cyber security can protect IT assets such as data, Cyber Resilience (CR) refers to the system’s ability to respond against successful cyber-attacks and revert to a normal state when cybersecurity fails to protect the system. CR must truly look at CI as complex systems where technology aspects are deeply interrelated to human and environmental factors as proposed in our interdisciplinary framework. The project’s novelty also refers to its approach to solve a persistent problem in the practice of CR: its operationalization. As of today, CR frameworks list key parameters to protect the system, but fail to indicate how to prioritize them in decision-making for governance, management and operations of CI systems. The significance of these innovations is considerable and timely, as new EU directives for cyber security and resilience mandate Member States to comply with their application to CI by 2027. The project will advance science and practice in these areas, validating outcomes in a relevant organizational setting: the Lithuanian Emergency Medical Service (EMS). The goals of this project will be achieved by an interdisciplinary research team applying, integrating and adaptating state-of-the-art concepts, principles, methods, and standards relevant to the research scope. Solutions will be scalable and applicable to other CI Sectors in the country and abroad. Technical skills will be developed by active participation of students as implementers, and by creating an in house training program for SME staff in three key aspects of CR: awareness, preparedness and readiness to act during a cyber and hybrid incident.

Project partners: Emergency Medical Services, Australian Lithuanian Cyber Security Research Network.

Project implementers: Dr. Giedrė Sabaliauskaitė, Dr. Sergio Arnoldo Jofre Barrios, Dr. Germanas Budnikas, Dr. Mykhailo Prazian, Evaldas Plečkaitis.

 

 

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No S-ITP-25-13, under the Council’s administered program „Information Technology for the Development of Science and Knowledge Society.”