INCREASED SECURITY OF THE EU INSTITUTIONS AGAINST CYBER-ATTACKS

In the recent years, the cyber-attacks have enlarged and the EU institutions are already targets beside the hospitals, transport companies and organisations in the finance and energy sectors. On 20 November 2017, the General Affairs Council stated that the European Union should strengthen the cyber security throughout its territory. The EU is facing cyber threats and challenges every day. Due to this significant issue, the EU institutions took an important step in strengthening their cooperation in the fight against cyber-attacks by concluding an inter-institution agreement on 20 December 2017 and establishing a permanent Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-EU) covering all the EU’s institutions, bodies and agencies. This team has been existing for many years as a temporal group for combating such threats, however as of the new agreement it turned into a permanent team responsible for ensuring a coordinated EU response to cyber-attacks against its institutions.

The decision was made following a one-year test for the team which collaborates with the internal IT security teams of the EU institutions and communicates with NATO and IT security companies in Member States and elsewhere, exchanging information on threats and solutions. CERT-EU also benefits from the support from the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) and is a member of the network of the national and governmental Computer Security Incident Response Teams that has been established by the Directive on security of network and information systems.