Finmeccanica-Selex ES has been awarded a €14M (£10M) contract by the UK MoD’s networks contractor Fujitsu to provide a global cyber defence capability across all UK MoD sites. The contract follows Fujitsu’s selection by the UK MoD to provide Wide Area Network, Local Area Network and gateway services as part of the Global Connectivity contract.

The technical and operational design for the solution will be based on Security Operations Centre’s (SOC) architecture developed for the “NATO Computer Incident Response - Full Operational Capability” protecting 52 NATO sites and headquarters in 29 countries.

The contract will see Selex ES design, build and commission a full SOC-based cyber defence capability including the technology platforms, personnel, and cyber concept-of-operations. Once operational, the cyber defence team will be able to detect and respond to cyber incidents and attacks on the network, handling over one hundred thousand threats per second.

Finmeccanica-Selex ES will draw upon the specialist expertise and experience of its 1,000 experts in the design, build and operation of cyber security solutions already implemented for 5,000 customers including NATO, international law enforcement and many of the world’s leading critical national infrastructure organizations.

The NATO NCIRC contract, for which Selex ES is the prime contractor, is widely recognized as the largest cyber contract awarded outside of the US. This expertise, combined with the company’s strong international supply chain of cyber technology providers and extensive experience of the UK defence landscape, will allow the company to rapidly build, deploy and support this enhanced cyber defence capability, confirming Finmeccanica’s position at the forefront of cyber security capability delivery.