The ongoing digitalization indeed increases the importance of cybersecurity, yet it is only one piece of the puzzle. Industry domain-specific technologies and concepts, safety experience and product development methodologies are only a few examples of other areas with which cybersecurity has to interface in practice. Cybersecurity cannot be approached in isolation. Only when considering the full system and boundary conditions will the result be a secure system or a feasible technical solution that will work in practice and will make it to the market. This is why methodological security expertise and a good understanding of industry-specific technologies are required to build secure systems. Based on the long list of past engineering projects, ITK Engineering has a huge experience pool from which our security engineers can draw. Thus, we never look at cybersecurity in isolation and proactively sense challenges that may arise when implementing security mechanisms.

Cybersecurity is necessary for all industry sectors that cope with digitalization. Many sectors develop their own standards, technical solutions, and methodologies. Thus, “state-of-the-art” differs between industry sectors: a pressing problem in one sector might have already been solved in another.

From automotive and industrial to healthcare – ITK performs cybersecurity projects in many domains, and thus has a broad overview of state-of-the-art security technology and methodology. This knowledge enables us to fit well-established solutions from similar scenarios and problems which were already solved in another context. This often results in sped up engineering at a lower cost.

Openness and transparency are the foundation of modern security (Kerckhoffs principle). The security of a system must not depend on the fact that its inner workings are proprietary and secret. Non-proprietary solutions are also favorable for customers from a business perspective, as they prevent vendor lock-in.

ITK provides whitebox solutions, for example, our customers retain both intellectual property rights and knowledge of the inner workings of our work products (e.g. source code). Apart from strengthening the security of the system by enabling independent assessments of our work products, this underlines ITK’s aim to enable its customers by providing extraordinary quality, timely deliveries, and flexible solutions instead of shackling the client with vendor lock-in.

A good balance between quality and cost can be achieved if consulting and engineering services are unbiased and independent. Security products induce costs and should thus only be applied when they are needed and fit the problem at hand. Our portfolio does not contain own products but offers consulting services and customer-specific solutions independent of products or platforms. Based on our motto, “What we advise, we can also provide”, we look beyond concepts, sense potential conflicts that may arise during implementation, and address them in the concept phase. The result: truly unbiased cybersecurity consulting and streamlined engineering services that fit the customer’s needs.