EU and US cyber security officials have come together to find out how they would most appropriately co-ordinate their response to a hacking incident. This is the first time that such an event has taken place between the two governing bodies, who acted out how they would respond to two scenarios.
The first scenario that was tested, involved a cyber-attack which attempted to steal secret information from the EU’s security agencies and publish it online. The second scenario was based on an attack which aimed to disrupt energy industry control systems.
The main aim of these tests was for each country to gain a clear understanding of who would be able to support them and what assistance would be available if they were to come under a similar attack.
Professor Udo Helmbrecht from the EU’s security adviser Enisa stated “We have to detect the incident and where it comes from. Then we have the computer emergency response teams in the various countries which have to exchange information and decide what can be done – this will depend in part on legal requirements.”
The event was obviously seen as a success with plans already being made to organise a similar event with Enisa hoping to involve more countries.
This event followed on from a similar one that took place last year which only involved European nations. The outcome from this resulted in the organisers feeling that nations “must increase their efforts”.
As countries throughout the world have started to experience a significant increase of cyber-attacks, weaknesses in the current defensive measure that have been installed are being blown wide open. This has led to confidential data being compromised which has had a detrimental impact on many companies and the economy of their nations.
Neelie Kroes, EU Digital Agenda Commissioner stated “Recent high profile cyber-attacks show that global threats need global action. Today’s exercise provides valuable lessons for specialists on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Professor Helmbrecht supports such claims and states “We have an increase in cyber threats and incidents so we need co-operation. The internet is an important backbone of our society – we use it for business and in our private lives. The more we depend on it, the more we need to share information to protect the infrastructure.”
