Through the European RESILMESH project, Alias Robotics has contributed to addressing these challenges by developing dedicated OT/IoT testing environments and advancing security assessment, threat detection, digital forensics and AI-assisted cybersecurity methods.
As the project approaches its final event on 11 November 2026, we look at our contribution, how RESILMESH has evolved since 2023 and why robotic cybersecurity requires an approach that extends beyond traditional IT security.
RESILMESH: strengthening Europe’s cyber resilience
RESILMESH, Situation Aware Enabled Cyber Resilience for Dispersed, Heterogeneous Cyber Systems, is a Horizon Europe research and innovation project coordinated by the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), bringing together 14 organisations.
Launched in October 2023, it addresses a challenge facing increasingly interconnected industrial and critical infrastructures: cybersecurity teams must understand not only individual threats, but also how those threats could affect interconnected assets, services and operations.
At the centre of RESILMESH is a Security Orchestration and Analytics Platform Architecture (SOAPA) built around cyber situational awareness.
The project brings together information about infrastructure assets, their dependencies, security events, threat intelligence and potential risks. The objective is to help security teams understand what is happening across complex environments and make more informed decisions about detection, investigation and response.
RESILMESH addresses three principal infrastructure categories:
Renewable energy
Connected energy infrastructure and industrial control systems.
Smart manufacturing and robotics
Automated production environments involving industrial robots and other operational technologies.
Regional civil infrastructure
Interconnected public services and their supporting digital systems.
Five additional use cases supported through the project’s Open Calls extend its scope.
This diversity is important. A cybersecurity approach suitable for an enterprise network cannot automatically be assumed to work in an industrial facility, where availability requirements, specialised devices and physical processes introduce additional constraints.
That is where Alias Robotics’ contribution becomes particularly relevant.
Alias Robotics’ contribution: bringing robotic cybersecurity into RESILMESH
Our involvement in RESILMESH has combined specialised knowledge of Operational Technology (OT), Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics with practical development work in cybersecurity testing and investigation.
Three areas have been central to our contribution: understanding the particular security challenges of these environments, developing dedicated testing environments, and improving methods and tools for security assessment, detection, digital forensics and AI-assisted cybersecurity.
Bringing OT, IoT and robotics expertise
Unlike conventional enterprise IT, industrial environments combine computing systems with technologies responsible for monitoring and controlling physical operations.
Robots introduce additional complexity through sensors, actuators, embedded software, industrial communications and control systems.
Their cybersecurity cannot be assessed solely by examining network access or software vulnerabilities. Security teams must also understand how those weaknesses interact with the robot’s intended operation and the surrounding industrial infrastructure.
Furthermore, operational requirements may limit when and how security assessments can be conducted. Activities that are acceptable in a conventional IT environment may create unacceptable disruption in a production setting.
Alias Robotics has brought this robotics-specific perspective to RESILMESH, contributing experience in identifying and investigating security weaknesses across interconnected OT/IoT environments.
This expertise builds on our longstanding work in robotic cybersecurity, including the Robot Security Framework (RSF), introduced before RESILMESH as a systematic assessment methodology covering physical, network, firmware and application layers.
Developing dedicated OT/IoT testing environments
A particularly important part of Alias Robotics’ work has been the development of dedicated testing environments to support cybersecurity tool development in OT and IoT settings.
These environments help address a fundamental limitation of conventional security development: industrial devices and robotic systems have characteristics that cannot always be adequately represented by ordinary IT infrastructure.
Specialised protocols, embedded controllers, interconnected equipment and operational constraints all influence how security tools must be designed and examined.
By developing environments specifically intended for OT/IoT contexts, Alias Robotics has supported the development and refinement of cybersecurity approaches that account for these differences.
This contribution helps connect broader cybersecurity research with the technical realities of industrial systems, where security assessments must consider not only digital exposure but also operational requirements.
Contributing to threat detection, digital forensics and AI-assisted cybersecurity
Beyond assessment and testing environments, Alias Robotics has contributed to threat detection, digital forensics and AI-assisted cybersecurity tools and methodologies within RESILMESH.
These activities address complementary questions:
What weaknesses exist?
And under what conditions could they be exploited?
What looks suspicious?
Which behaviour might indicate an attempted or ongoing compromise?
What does the evidence show?
Which evidence is available to reconstruct an event and understand its effects?
The distinction is particularly important in robotics.
An investigation may require examination of communication events, software configurations and system logs alongside information about the robot’s expected behaviour.
A security alert alone cannot establish whether an unexpected action was caused by malicious manipulation, a configuration error, a software defect or another operational problem.
The project’s public System Architecture v2, Deliverable D2.3, illustrates this specialised investigative approach.
Within its broader Threat Hunting and Forensics component, RESILMESH describes a Robotic Forensics capability based on 67 standardised investigative steps, covering aspects such as log analysis, configuration integrity and system behaviour.
The documented architecture also describes how relevant alerts can initiate an operator-guided investigation through the RESILMESH environment.
This is a capability described at consortium level, complementing the wider research effort to which Alias Robotics has contributed. It highlights the need for structured, robotics-specific investigation rather than relying exclusively on general-purpose IT forensic methods.
From the 2023 kick-off to the final project phase
- Oct 2023RESILMESH began on 1 October 2023, with its consortium kick-off held in Athlone, Ireland, on 17–18 October. Partners established the foundations of the project and began defining the architecture, technical requirements and activities needed to address cyber resilience across different infrastructure environments.
- Nov 2023Alias Robotics announced its participation, identifying industrial processes and robots as a key area for its contribution.
- 2024–2025The consortium advanced the development of its technical architecture, cybersecurity tools and integration activities, alongside pilot preparation and the involvement of additional innovators through its Open Calls.
- Jul 2025A significant milestone: submission of the second version of the RESILMESH system architecture, reflecting the evolution of the initial design and experience gained through development activities.
- 2026Attention has increasingly turned to platform integration, evaluation and the preparation of project results for wider dissemination.
- Oct 2026Partners gathered in Brno, Czech Republic, on 6–7 October to review progress, coordinate outstanding activities and prepare the project’s final event.
- 11 Nov 2026Online final event. The European Commission’s project record currently lists 30 November 2026 as the administrative completion date.
This progression provides the broader context for Alias Robotics’ work: contributing specialised security expertise and development activities as part of a European effort to strengthen cyber resilience across different operational environments.
When cybersecurity becomes a physical safety concern
One of the most important differences between robotics and conventional IT security is the potential connection between digital compromise and physical consequences.
A successful cyberattack against an enterprise system may expose sensitive information, interrupt services or compromise business operations. Those same risks exist in industrial environments. But when compromised software controls physical machinery, an incident may also affect the operation of equipment.
Consider a hypothetical scenario in which an attacker gains unauthorised access to an industrial robot’s control interface. Depending on the system architecture, permissions and independent safety mechanisms, the attacker might attempt to modify operating parameters or issue unintended commands.
Potential consequences range from a controlled production interruption to equipment damage or a hazardous physical situation.
This does not mean that compromising a robot automatically allows an attacker to cause unsafe movements. Industrial safety systems and independent protective measures are specifically intended to reduce these risks.
Nevertheless, cybersecurity investigations must consider the possibility of cyber-physical consequences rather than limiting their scope to network access or software compromise.
Digital forensics is particularly relevant here. Understanding whether suspicious activity affected a robot’s configuration, control logic or behaviour can help investigators distinguish between security incidents and other operational failures.
For manufacturers and industrial operators, this evidence can support decisions about containment, corrective action and the safe restoration of operations.
What RESILMESH means for industrial cyber resilience
RESILMESH has brought together complementary cybersecurity capabilities and specialised expertise to address the challenges of increasingly interconnected infrastructures.
Alias Robotics’ contribution reflects an important principle: improving industrial cyber resilience requires understanding the systems being protected and developing security approaches suited to their operating conditions.
Dedicated OT/IoT testing environments support cybersecurity tool development. Structured assessments help examine potential weaknesses. Threat detection and forensic investigation provide complementary methods for identifying suspicious activity and interpreting evidence. AI-assisted cybersecurity approaches form another part of this wider research effort.
This is especially important for robots, where the relationship between software, industrial networks and physical behaviour makes security investigation a multidisciplinary task.
Join the RESILMESH final event: from European research to real-world impact
The RESILMESH consortium will share its work and lessons at its upcoming online final event:
Cyber Resilience in the AI Era: From European Research to Real-World Impact
- Date
- Time
- 10:00–12:10 CET
- Format
- Online
The programme will address Europe’s cyber-resilience priorities, the role of AI-assisted cybersecurity, experiences from the project’s pilots and Open Calls, and the transition from European research to practical application.
Alias Robotics’ contribution to robotic cybersecurity forms part of this broader effort to strengthen the security of connected and critical infrastructures.
For cybersecurity professionals, industrial operators, manufacturers and researchers, the event offers an opportunity to explore the work of the RESILMESH consortium and the challenges of translating cybersecurity research into operational resilience. Registration and programme information are available on the official project website.
RESILMESH has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme under Grant Agreement No. 101119681. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Alias Robotics and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the granting authority. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.