Innovate UK Soteria Project

The Soteria project is a cyber-security demonstrator for the e-commerce industrial market. 

Project led by THG Holdings plc (THG) and involves the universities of Oxford and Manchester. THG is a global online retailer and technology business with digital security at the heart of its operations. It has world-class technical and research teams who will be applying their findings to the cutting edge of UK and global digital security through this project. The University of Manchester will provide technical expertise on managed runtimes, smart network technologies, and business optimisation; and the University of Oxford with expertise in formal verification. The research is aimed at reducing the potential impact of security breaches and attacks, and the costs required to secure digital businesses and services. The societal impacts are improved public perception to the benefits of technology, and less disruption to the daily activities of individuals in society due to security incidents, and service outages across public, government, and paid for digital services. Demonstrating the enhanced security capabilities and development of related products and technology strengthens the global and, especially, UK impact to online business, the public and government services and objectives. Finally, the proposed ingredients could constitute the basis for developing a software ecosystem capable of protecting against future cyber-attacks. 

Professor Tom Melham comments, ‘Soteria will demonstrate innovative extensions to the Morello capability architecture to toughen security protection for e-commerce and protect businesses. Oxford is delighted to being its deep experience and expertise in formal verification to this unique project, both to advance our research and to improve security assurance for the technology.’

Professor Mikel Luján, Arm/RAEng Research Chair and Royal Society Wolfson Fellow, said, 'The University of Manchester has a world-leading track record collaborating with Arm Ltd., and as such is recognised as an Arm Center of Excellence. Soteria is a very exciting opportunity to contribute to the Morello platform developed by Arm Ltd. with our expertise in runtime systems (such as JVMs), software verification and computer engineering. The collaboration with THG provides a unique opportunity to transform the security foundations of the digital infrastructure of e-commerce as well as improve the security of UK companies.