Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cyprus will soon have access to €2.5 million in grants aimed at strengthening their cybersecurity resilience, according to an announcement by the Digital Security Authority (DSA) – National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre (NCC-CY) and the Research and Innovation Foundation (RIF).

The initiative, presented in cooperation with the Office of the Commissioner of Communications, is split into two dedicated schemes: €1.5 million for SMEs outside the tourism sector and €1 million specifically for tourism businesses, including hotels and travel agencies.

The call for proposals, launched under the “Enhancing Cybersecurity for Small and Medium Enterprises in the Republic of Cyprus 2025” programme, is open until 18 November 2025 at 13:00. Applications must be submitted through the RIF’s IRIS portal. A webinar is scheduled for 25 September to guide interested enterprises through the application process and funding details.

Funding per project will range from a minimum of €20,000 to a maximum of €65,000, or €75,000 if applicants adopt the ENISA AR-in-a-Box tool. Grants will cover up to 70% of eligible costs, which must be directly linked to achieving cybersecurity certification under the NCC-CY’s Cyber Hygiene Framework for SMEs.

Eligible expenses include services and equipment such as firewalls, privileged access management systems, backup solutions, sandboxing technologies, email filtering, phishing protection tools, incident response services, security operation centre (SOC) services, two-factor authentication, and staff training on cybersecurity. Physical security measures and access control systems are also covered.

The overarching goal is to help Cypriot SMEs reach a basic level of cybersecurity maturity in order to safeguard their infrastructure, systems, and sensitive data.

Further information, guides, and application details are available on the RIF’s IRIS portal.