Crossword Cybersecurity Regulatory News (CCS)

Crossword Cybersecurity Plc wins NGI Atlantic funds for Verifiable Credentials project

4 August 2022 - London, UK - Crossword Cybersecurity Plc (AIM:CCS, "Crossword", the "Company" or the "Group"), the cybersecurity solutions company focused on cyber strategy and risk, is pleased to announce that it has won a €41,625 grant from the European Commission's Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative to lead a project to test the OpenID Foundation's protocols for transferring verifiable credentials. Crossword's partners in this project are Spruce Inc from the USA and Fraunhofer from Germany.

The European Commission's NGI initiative was launched in 2016 with the objective of shaping the future internet as an interoperable ecosystem that embodies the following values: openness, inclusivity, transparency, accountability, privacy, cooperation, protection of data and information, and freedom.

The purpose of NGI Atlantic is to develop and provide funding for collaborations between EU and US research teams on projects that look at ways to address the technical challenges posed by the vision of developing the NGI.

Crossword has received funding for a proposal to develop test suites and interworking tests for World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Verifiable Credentials (VC) that use the OpenID Foundation's suite of protocols. These are currently under development for transferring verifiable credentials.

Prof David Chadwick, the project leader, is a co-author of W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model Recommendation and the OIDF WhitepaperOpenID for Verifiable Credentials. He is also R&D Director for Verifiable Credentials at Crossword and is the creator of Crossword's Identiproof product, which is based on the W3C Verifiable Credentials standard.

Prof Chadwick said "This is incredibly good news for Crossword and Identiproof, our leading SSI (Self Sovereign Identity) product. Coming soon after our success at the JFF Plugfest last month, where we demonstrated the interoperable display of an Open Badges V3 credential as announced on 7 July 2022, the NGI Atlantic project will enable us to concentrate on implementing the draft OpenID Protocols for verifiable credentials. Early prototyping will enable us to fix any inconsistencies or omissions in the draft OIDF specifications, and feed our results into the W3C working group that has just started to specify version 2 of the verifiable credentials data model."

Identiproof's VC technology has wide ranging applications including digital ticketing, certificates, licenses, memberships, passports, proof of ownership and many others. It provides a central technology in applications for the issuing of digital certificates and documents that cannot be forged or transferred, and that respect the privacy of the holders of those certificates. It does this through selective disclosure, whereby the recipient requests the minimum of information in conformance with GDPR. Identiproof is one of the first systems built to the 2019 W3C recommendations: The Verifiable Credentials Data Model and Web Authentication (FIDO2) - two new global web security standards. 

Verifiable Credentials Limited, the provider of Identiproof™, was acquired by Crossword in May 2021. Identiproof achieved its early adoption of the W3C verifiable credentials standard thanks to Emeritus Professor David Chadwick being one of the six co-authors and editors of the standard and a well-known expert in the field of digital identity and verifiable credentials. 

Contacts

Crossword Cybersecurity plc - Tel: +44 (0) 333 090 2587

Email: info@crosswordcybersecurity.com

Tom Ilube, Chief Executive Officer

Mary Dowd, Chief Financial Officer

Grant Thornton (Nominated Adviser) - Tel: +44 (0) 20 7383 5100

Colin Aaronson / Jamie Barklem / Daphne Zhang / Ciara Donnelly

Hybridan LLP (Broker) - Tel: +44 (0)203 764 2341

Claire Louise Noyce

For media enquiries contact:

Financial PR:

David Hothersall, Kinlan Communications

davidh@kinlan.net - Tel: +44 (0) 207 638 3435

General:

Duncan Gurney, GingerPR

duncan@gingerpr.co.uk - Tel: +44 (0)1932 485 300

About Crossword Cybersecurity plc

Crossword offers a range of cyber security solutions to help companies understand and reduce cyber security risk. We do this through a combination of people and technology, in the form of SaaS and software products, consulting, and managed services. Crossword's areas of emphasis are cyber security strategy and risk, supply chain cyber, threat detection and response, and digital identity and the aim is to build up a portfolio of cyber security products and services with recurring revenue models in these four areas. We work closely with UK universities and our products and services are often powered by academic research-driven insights. In the area of cybersecurity strategy and risk our consulting services include cyber maturity assessments, industry certifications, and virtual chief information security officer (vCISO) managed services.

Crossword's end-to-end supply chain cyber standard operating model (SCC SOM) is supported by our best-selling SaaS platform, Rizikon Assurance, along with cost-effective cyber audits, security testing services and complete managed services for supply chain cyber risk management. Threat detection and response services include our Nightingale AI-based network monitoring, Nixer to protect against application layer DDoS attacks, our Trillion and Arc breached credentials tracking platforms, and incident response. Crossword's work in digital identity is based on the World Wide Web Consortium W3C verifiable credentials standard and our current solution, Identiproof, enables secure digital verification of individuals to prevent fraud.

Crossword serves medium and large clients including FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and S&P listed companies in various sectors, such as defence, insurance, investment and retail banks, private equity, education, technology and manufacturing and has offices in the UK, Poland and Oman. Crossword is quoted on AIM of the London Stock Exchange.

Visit Crossword at https://www.crosswordcybersecurity.com/

More about the JFF Plugfest can be found at: www.nga.org/projects/skills-driven-state-community-of-practice/