F-SECURE OYJ

Their core work

F-Secure is a Finnish cybersecurity company that develops security software and services for businesses and consumers, with a strong commercial track record in endpoint protection and threat intelligence. In H2020, they contributed industrial-grade security expertise to IoT and smart home research — covering secure hardware and software design, cybersecurity and privacy auditing, and compliance certification. Their participation bridges the gap between academic research prototypes and real-world product deployment, grounding consortium work in the constraints of shipping security solutions at scale. They bring both technical security depth and market-facing knowledge of what it takes to make connected devices trustworthy and certifiable.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Both H2020 projects started in 2020, so temporal evolution is thematic rather than chronological. Across the two projects, the emphasis shifts from high-level concepts — AI trustability, explainability, cross-domain reliability (InSecTT) — toward concrete operational security practice: auditing, certification, privacy-by-design, and standardisation (SIFIS-HOME). This trajectory mirrors the broader EU regulatory shift from principles to enforcement, suggesting F-Secure is actively positioning its research involvement to track the compliance and certification demands now embedded in EU digital legislation.

F-Secure is moving toward the compliance and certification end of IoT security, making them an increasingly relevant partner for consortia targeting EU regulatory alignment — particularly around the Cyber Resilience Act and GDPR-adjacent privacy requirements.

How they like to work

F-Secure participates exclusively as a consortium partner, never as a coordinator, positioning them as a specialist contributor rather than a research agenda-setter. Both projects involve very large consortia — 70 unique partners across 14 countries for just two engagements — indicating they are comfortable operating within complex, multi-organisation research environments without needing to lead. This makes them a low-friction, high-expertise partner for coordinators who need credible commercial security representation in their consortium.

F-Secure has connected with 70 unique partners across 14 countries through only two projects, reflecting the large-scale nature of both InSecTT and SIFIS-HOME, which are flagship ICT consortia. Their network is concentrated in the European IoT, cybersecurity, and embedded systems research community.

What sets them apart

F-Secure is one of the few commercially established cybersecurity firms in European H2020 IoT research — most consortium partners in this space are universities or research institutes, while F-Secure brings the perspective of a company that has shipped security products to millions of endpoints. This commercial grounding makes their contribution to auditing, certification, and privacy-compliance work directly actionable, not just theoretical. For consortium builders, F-Secure's involvement signals industry validation and adds credibility when seeking to demonstrate a research project's path to market.

Highlights from their portfolio

• SIFIS-HOME
  Largest funding share (EUR 236,759) and the most operationally grounded of the two projects — covering the full security stack for smart homes from hardware to auditing and certification, with direct relevance to EU product safety regulation.
• InSecTT
  Tackles the underexplored intersection of AI explainability and IoT security, positioning F-Secure at the frontier of trustable AI governance for embedded and connected systems.