The New SHIELD Architectural Framework

New SHIELD (nSHIELD) is a European research project co-funded by the Artemis Joint Undertaking (Sub-programme SP6) focused on the research of innovative solutions for security, privacy, dependability (SPD) in the context of embedded systems (ES), including those employed in railway security applications. The nSHIELD project aims at addressing SPD issues as “built in” rather than as “add-on” functionalities, by adopting an innovative holistic approach. We perceive this strategy as being the first step towards SPD certification for future ES. The leading ideas at the basis of this research are: i) to enrich the state-of-the-art with new SPD solutions and ii) to enable the composability of these (new or already existing) solutions. This will be achieved in two steps. First, starting from current SPD solutions, the project will develop new technologies and consolidate those already explored in pSHIELD (a SHIELD pilot project) in a solid basement that will become the reference milestone for a new generation of “SPD-ready” ES. Second, these technologies will be then enhanced with the “composability” functionality that is being studied and formalized.