Leading the drive towards improved cyber resilience, Ricardo and Roke Manor Research have signed a new agreement to further their commitment to deliver world-class and trusted cyber assurance solutions for transportation, commercial and critical national infrastructure clients.

The new ‘Heads of Terms’ agreement executed by Ricardo and Roke provides the two companies with a set of compelling offers that will help customers protect their products, systems and businesses from cyber risks. This agreement reinforces the complementary nature of this unique collaboration between the two companies, which has been supported by a positive response from senior executives within the major international automotive OEMs and their supply chains.

“Since the start of our collaboration with Roke we have identified a growing concern amongst our clients regarding the increasingly connected environment of transportation and associated evolving cyber threat that this brings,” commented Ricardo CEO Dave Shemmans.

“Our clients are aware of the increasing motivation, sophistication and capability of hackers. They also recognise the implications this has on their business as they strive to protect their IP and ensure both the safety and data security of their customers. The new agreement between Ricardo and Roke will strengthen our cooperation and the service that we can offer our clients across all sectors of transportation.”

David Cole, MD of Roke added: “Roke and Ricardo offer complementary world-class knowledge and breadth of experience expertise. The Roke and Ricardo collaboration is working brilliantly, and we are proactively talking to customers to sharpen their approach and capabilities to cyber security. We aim to deliver strategic-level cyber security support, services and tools to protect customers in the automation and transportation sectors.

The new ‘Heads of terms agreement’ signed by Ricardo and Roke will facilitate this new, closer collaboration between the two companies. In addition to their direct collaboration, Roke and Ricardo are also partners on the UK 5StarS project which aims to develop a five-star type consumer rating framework for automotive cyber security, analogous to existing Euro NCAP type ratings for vehicle safety.