ESFORS is a Coordination Action that aims at bringing together the European stakeholders for security and dependability Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to address the security and dependability requirements of emerging software service platforms. This emergence of open service platforms such as web services provides major opportunities to position the European software industry at the heart of the emerging information society. However, the uptake of solutions based on software by industry is dependent on industry confidence in their security and dependability.

The project is positioned to support the emergence of a software and services platform architecture ensuring the incorporation of security and dependability best practice. The project will complement already existing coordination actions, e.g. SecurIST, to help shape the Security and dependability content within the European Strategic Research Agenda. It will co-operate with SecurIST to ensure that open service requirements are incorporated into the SecurIST security and dependability technology roadmap and that the roadmap is incorporated into the research agenda of the software and service research community. ESFORS will act as a bridge between these two communities: the software and services application community and the security and dependability community.