The EU stands together against hacker attacks: an international “shield” is about to be born and managed by private companies.
If a group of very competent and well-organized hackers sets out to violate the IT structures of a public body on European soil, they will likely succeed very easily. And it doesn’t matter if the public body is the Municipality of Acate or the German Foreign Ministry. There must be more internal skills to manage the attack and field the best responses. For this reason, the European Commission presented the Cyber Solidarity Act, including the European “cyber shield “. That is the European Information Shield.
What Is The European Information Shield
With the European IT Shield, the EU means a new structure, a consortium of private companies specialized in cybersecurity that will make themselves available to the European public sector to deal with the hacker attack as quickly as possible.
There is, therefore, talk of preparing the huge economic resources necessary to select and maintain operational national and international centers, whose task will be to react to attacks much more effectively than the public sector can do alone.
Cecilia Bonefeld Dahl, director of Digital Europe (an organization representing private digital companies in Europe), was clear and forthright about it: ” There is no chance that the public sector can do it alone. They will always need access to the competencies that we have. In this field, our interests coincide perfectly: to have a secure cyberspace and to deal with hybrid threats commonly.
Over One Billion In Funds Available
The European IT Shield will cost even a lot. Still, according to the vice president of the EU Commission, it is not even certain that the resources allocated will be sufficient: ” There cannot be sufficient resources ready because it is not known when a cyber attack will occur “.
The available figure is 1.1 billion euros, mostly from Europe and a small part from the Member States. It will be seen over time whether the budget will be sufficient or whether it will have to be increased, and by how much.
When The EU Cybershield Arrives
The Cyber Solidarity Act provides the new cyber shield, which is an act of the European Commission and will have to pass through the approval of the European Parliament and then of the individual Member States. The goal is to have the shield in place as early as 2024, which will most likely be achieved.
No one in Europe has a political interest in hindering this initiative: IT security is a very hot topic, and it is clear to everyone that today no one, not even the highly efficient northern European states, can do it alone.
But the common management of IT security could give rise to some doubts about diplomatic issues and, among other things, the various national secret services could turn up their noses in the case of attacks on very sensitive structures of the state administration that localized private companies manage in a European state other than that of the attack.
Also Read: Cybersecurity Alert: The Main Cyber Attacks That Hit Companies
