Corporate | Cyber Security Leonardo’s cyber capabilities to protect the European Union

Leonardo is awarded the FREIA contract to provide advanced cybersecurity services to the European Commission and to institutions, bodies and agencies of the European Union

Leonardo has been awarded Lot 1 of the inter-institutional framework contract FREIA to provide advanced cybersecurity services to the European Commission and to 71 entities, including institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union. The contract was awarded to Leonardo and Atos, partners in the 'ELCA4EU' consortium, by the Directorate-General for Digital Services of the European Commission (DG DIGIT), for a total value exceeding 300 million euros. FREIA aims to support the entities concerned in securing their infrastructures through operational cybersecurity services structured around the six phases defined by the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

The FREIA contract emerges in the context of escalating geopolitical tensions, where the cyber threat has become a primary focus. As evidence of the emergency, data from Leonardo's Global CyberSec Center show a 36% increase in cyber events in Europe over the past 12 months. Global security is now built, therefore, by combining traditional defence with the protection of critical infrastructures, an area in which cybersecurity plays a fundamental role. In this context, Europe needs to protect its institutions in order to ensure the security, stability and sovereignty of the entire Union.

Protecting European institutions and agencies is essential as they represent the beating heart of the Union's governance and are therefore strategic targets for attackers. Given the amount of critical data managed by the European institutions, their compromise would not constitute a mere incident, but could pose a risk of political instability with a potential cascading systemic effect on Member States. Safeguarding these entities not only protects the trust and values of the European Union, but is also a strategic step towards achieving the goals of the Digital Compass 2030 and ensuring Europe's digital autonomy.

It is precisely on these issues that today, 30 September, the event 'Cyber for EU: Stronger Together' is taking place in Brussels, co-organised by Leonardo and dedicated to the cybersecurity stakeholders of EU institutions and agencies.

Through the Global CyberSec Center (GCC) platform-natively designed around Zero Trust principles and enhanced by multi-agentic AI-Leonardo provides a comprehensive, integrated range of products, services and solutions aligned with the six phases of the Cybersecurity Framework of NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology), fostering a more cyber-resilient Union ready to meet the challenges of the future.