VirtualPAC wins a security research (R&D) award

For yet another year over 500 security experts attended the International Security Awards held for the 32nd time this year by Seguritecnia. These awards publicly recognize outstanding security companies and professionals. As such, GMV could hardly be missing from the ceremony.

This year in particular GMV was awarded the R&D Prize for its VirtualPAC project, a solution for the deployment, management and secure operation of control systems involved in the control and operational network of an industrial plant. Miguel Hormigo, Industry Manager of GMV’s Secure e-Solutions sector, received the prize, which celebrates GMV’s ongoing improvement and innovation expertise, making it a beacon in technologies adapted to the digital transformation. During the award ceremony Hormigo expressed his thanks for this recognition of the imagination and talent of the team that has made this project possible, the exclusive feat of developing something unique in the market and the adaptation of Industry 4.0 to meet an existing need.

VirtualPAC is a groundbreaking, multivendor solution that enables various control software modules to be deployed in industrial controllers to improve processes or solve any defects, all without needing to shut the plant down. It not only cuts costs but also offers smart solutions to reduce the resource- and energy-demand. At all times it takes into account the cybersecurity of productive processes in their takeup of Industry 4.0.

During the award ceremony’s opening address, José Luis Bolaños, president of Securitecnia’s Technical Advisory Board, heralded the headway made in security matters in recent years. He referred, for example, to the Copa Libertadores football competition recently held in Madrid, where the public-private collaboration involved won Spain “worldwide fame and recognition” as a critical-infrastructure-protection role model. It was held up as “an example for the rest of Europe” and a prime example of the “society’s quick and thoroughgoing takeup of” Cybersecurity. As for the challenges now facing security professionals, Bolaños pointed out that “the focus is no longer faced on prevention or protection but rather on resilience”. He went on: “our society is not going to be able to ward off all types of serious integrity attacks, but it will be able to organize itself to respond, resist and survive”.