Everyday internet-connected devices—from smart thermostats to industrial sensors—are notoriously insecure, and fixing each one individually is impractical. CyberStone will build a secure, intelligent gateway that sits between these devices and the wider internet, acting as a central point to monitor, analyse, and block cyber threats in real time. The core problem is that most Internet of Things (IoT) devices lack basic security features and cannot be easily updated. CyberStone tackles this at the network gateway—the router-like hardware already present in most homes and businesses. The gateway will use edge-based processing and AI to detect unusual device behaviour, share threat information across a collaborative ecosystem, and enforce security measures such as secure boot and managed updates. If successful, CyberStone could make smart homes, connected factories, and critical infrastructure far more resilient to cyberattacks without requiring every individual device to be replaced or redesigned. The project brings together a UK AI firm, Cisco, the IoT Security Foundation, and Oxford’s Cyber Security Centre to develop a deployable, standards-based solution.
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Public description Objective CyberStone will develop a secure, intelligent, collaborative IOT gateway to address the IOT cyber security challenge. Its key components are Secure: the gateway will embody security best practice. This encompasses secure boot, secure storage, software component attestation, network segmentation, managed IOT updates, remote management of router capabilities, roots of trust and secure device and user identities. Intelligent: CyberStone will by dynamic. Using secure edge based processing it will analyse IOT device behaviours and dynamical infer risk using a mix of strategies from statistics to full blown AI. The processing will include cloud based security services, that complement the local analytics Collaborative: the IOT risk is shared across players. A collaborative ecosystem of information sharing is needed to both detect and mitigate risks. CyberStone will define collaborative information sharing protocols, IOT fingerprinting techniques and technical integration layers to make wide scale deployment and impact possible Why the gateway Why address the issue at the gateway? For both deep technical and entirely pragmatic purposes securing the IOT endpoint is impossible. The horse has already bolted. The IOT gateway is an essential component of most IOT deployments, but provides a unique management node, to monitor, analyse, and mitigate risk across heterogeneous IOT devices and networks. Equally, any deep IOT security endpoint innovation will require an IOT gateway innovation to be practically deployable The team CyberStone is an active collaboration between: NquiringMinds - a leading UK AI and Cyber SME, Cisco - one of the worlds foremost router and gateway suppliers, The Internet of Things Security Foundation - a UK based trade association, with international reach, focusing entirely on IOT security and University of Oxford Cyber Security Centre , one of the UKs leading academic cyber centres of excellence
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