BASTION - Cyber Hardening for Critical Infrastructure

Overview

Project BASTION represents AIC’s flagship cyber-resilience and hardening framework for high-value infrastructure.
It delivers a layered defensive architecture combining continuous monitoring, advanced encryption, secrets management, and rapid incident response to protect mission-critical assets from emerging cyber threats.

Developed in alignment with Zero Trust principles and national cyber-security frameworks, BASTION provides a comprehensive, auditable, and proactive defence posture for critical systems across energy, transport, defence, manufacturing, and public-sector networks.

The programme integrates SIEM/SOAR orchestration, automated secrets rotation, and red-team validated playbooks, providing both technical enforcement and strategic assurance to executive stakeholders.
From detection to recovery, BASTION ensures operational continuity, data integrity, and sovereign control in the face of sustained cyber pressure.

Mission

To fortify and modernise the digital backbone of national infrastructure — establishing an adaptive, intelligence-driven defence environment capable of detecting, resisting, and recovering from cyber compromise without service interruption.

Core Capabilities

• Layered Defence Architecture – Multi-tier controls across perimeter, identity, data, and application layers.

• SIEM / SOAR Deployment – Centralised event correlation and automated incident triage using systems such as Microsoft Sentinel or Splunk SOAR.

• Zero Trust Implementation – Network segmentation, policy-based access, and micro-perimeter enforcement via AEGIS-ID integration.

• Secrets Management & Rotation – Automated key and credential lifecycle management using HSM-backed vaults.

• Continuous Monitoring & Threat Hunting – Telemetry ingestion from endpoints, OT devices, and cloud services, enriched by behavioural analytics.

• Incident Response Runbooks – Pre-authorised playbooks for containment, eradication, and recovery, validated through live exercises.

• Red-Team Collaboration – Scheduled adversarial testing cycles with integrated blue-team feedback loops.

• Compliance & Reporting – Dashboards and audit trails aligned to NCSC CAF, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, and sector-specific regulations.

Technical Architecture

Operational Playbook

1. Baseline Assessment & Threat Modeling – Identify assets, dependencies, and critical interconnects.

2. Hardening & Segmentation – Implement micro-perimeters and least-privilege access.

3. Continuous Detection – Deploy SIEM/SOAR with custom correlation rules.

4. Response & Containment – Execute automated runbooks; isolate and remediate compromised endpoints.

5. Recovery & Validation – Re-image, verify signatures, and restore from clean baselines.

6. Post-Incident Review – Feed lessons learned into red-team cycles and threat-intelligence updates.

Compliance Alignment

Project BASTION aligns with the most stringent international and UK regulatory frameworks:

• NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF)

• ISO 27001 / 27035 / 27701

• NIST Cyber Security Framework v2.0

• UK NIS Regulations 2018

• MOD JSP 440 / 604

• Energy Network & Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) guidance

BASTION includes built-in compliance dashboards and automated evidence collection to streamline assurance reporting for executive and regulator review.

Key Advantages

• Resilience by Design: Layered defence reduces single-point vulnerabilities.

• Operational Clarity: Unified monitoring provides near-real-time situational awareness.

• Rapid Response: SOAR playbooks enable sub-minute reaction to verified incidents.

• Regulatory Confidence: Continuous alignment with NCSC CAF and ISO controls.

• Collaborative Security: Red-/Blue-team integration fosters continuous improvement.

• Executive Visibility: Automated reports translate cyber metrics into business risk context.

Use Cases

• Energy and Utilities: Real-time intrusion detection and compliance reporting for SCADA networks.

• Transport & Aviation: Protecting IoT-enabled infrastructure and passenger systems.

• Defence & Government: Securing mission networks, control rooms, and classified gateways.

• Manufacturing & Industrial Control: Continuous monitoring of production lines and OT networks.

• Healthcare & Public Services: Safeguarding critical citizen data and service uptime.

Strategic Value

Project BASTION anchors AIC’s cyber-resilience portfolio, ensuring that the same engineering discipline used in defence encryption and data systems is applied to national infrastructure protection.

It enables clients to detect, respond, and recover faster than adversaries can adapt — combining technical enforcement, human readiness, and executive assurance into one unified resilience strategy.
BASTION is not just a framework for cyber defence — it is the living shield of operational continuity for the organisations that cannot afford to fail.