The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) called for applications for the R&D Program for New Industry Creation through IT Integration (Cyber Security Test Bed Establishment). Through a careful examination of the submitted proposals by external experts, a successful applicant was selected and announced.

Security measures for the control systems, which manage plant equipment and other devices and play an indispensable part in them, are becoming increasingly important in order to ensure the stable operation of factories and critical infrastructure. Recent incidents involving damage to control systems include the suspension of systems at a factory after they were infected with a computer virus, an increase in the number of semiconductor factories that have sustained damage from viruses, and inability to start systems because of hard drives being infected with viruses. Meanwhile, overseas customers are placing more emphasis on the security evaluation and certification of control systems.

To address these issues, METI will build a security test center for control systems. It will conduct R&D on control system testing, establish an evaluation and certification system, and seek to enable domestic security certification and international mutual recognition in accordance with request from overseas markets.

This program aims to conduct R&D on design methods to create highly secure control systems, security test methods, and third-party evaluation and certification schemes; build facilities and equipment needed for such R&D, associated international standardization activities, and evaluation and certification; and establish a cyber security test bed (security test facility) that performs tests mainly in the Tohoku region.

Applications were accepted from January 27 to March 7, 2012.

The applicant to be granted the subsidy under the program was selected based on the results of examination by external experts.

The following applicant was selected for the program.

Technology research association "Control System Security Center"
(President: Seiichi Shin, Professor, The University of Electro-Communications)

Appendices

• Appendix 1: Publicity document (PDF:406KB) (in Japanese)
• Appendix 2: Overview of the Cyber Security Test Bed initiative (PDF:426KB) (in Japanese)
• Appendix 3: Future framework for ensuring control system security (PDF:150KB) (in Japanese)

March 19, 2012

Office for IT Security Policy, Commerce and Information Policy Bureau