Europe has a shortage of IT security specialists, according to an EU report on the latest civil cybersecurity exercise, in June. The private sector should set IT security as a priority and invest in resources and expertise, especially the operators for essential services, such as aviation, energy, finance, healthcare, maritime, and transport, it’s claimed.
Cyber Europe 2018 was ENISA’s fifth pan-European cyber crisis exercise; by the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security. Udo Helmbrecht, Executive Director of ENISA, said: “Cyber Europe 2018 highlighted the importance of cooperation between national authorities, security providers, and potential victims of a cyber-attack. It proved once again that cybersecurity is a shared responsibility, and extreme incidents can be tackled best only by information exchange and collaboration. All participants did a great job in following business processes, agreements, communication protocols, and regulations to mitigate effectively the situations presented to them. ENISA values very much these capacity-building exercises, and will continue to provide such services for the EU Member States, especially in light of the new mandate of the agency.”
Most of the 900 who took part were from the private sector from 30 countries. The two-day exercise at ENISA headquarters in Athens saw 23,200 ‘injects’ in the exercise, depicting cyber-attacks at major European airports, takeovers of official communication channels, and disinformation in the media and social media among other issues.
ENISA’s 14-page report on the exercise suggested public and private organisations must ensure that they have crisis communication protocols in place and that personnel in sensitive positions are aware of these.
Meanwhile a separate ENISA report aims to identify the cybersecurity threats to European society and to identify priorities in research that will lead to mitigations.
The 34-page document imagines an ‘always online’ Europe of 2025 of quantum computing, wearable devices, augmented reality, digital identities required for access to government services, and artificial intelligence; but also law enforcers unable to act as fast as criminals who move freely in cyber-space; making cyber security and privacy major areas of policy concern.
