The European Comission has proposed a common european cyber defense policy in reply to “deteriorating security environment» that has been generated since Russia invaded Ukraine. Citing recent attacks on power grids, transport infrastructure and even space-related assets, the Commission has called on member states to “increase significantly» your investments in cybersecurity capabilities.
In addition, this organization also wants to promote defense agreements and collaboration in terms of threat intelligence, apart from more cooperation between the different armies and state security forces, and information and security professionals from the private sector.
This will include the establishment of an EU Cyber Defense Coordination Centre, and encouraging member states to participate more actively in Military Computer Emergency Response Teams (MICNET). All at the same time that a similar network is being developed to respond to civil society cyber incidents. This is explained in a joint statement from the Parliament and the European Council.
The document also suggests that EU governments develop a cyber defense exercise (CyDef-X) to function as a framework for joint cyber defense exercises. Also for “explore the possibilities» to develop rapid online reaction teams, through the development of the PESCO CRRT project.
As stated by the Vice President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell«cyber is the new domain of warfare. To be ready for the challenges and threats that lie ahead, we need modern and interoperable European armed forces, with the latest cyber defense capabilities«.
Borrell assures that «we must adapt all our defense policies to the new war situation«. For this reason, the EU is going to mobilize 1,600 million euros to anticipate “a scenario of increasing risk of war”. And for this, the European Commission wants military troops and heavy equipment to have the same freedom of movement in the EU as civilians. To do this, he points out that it is necessary to identify the shortcomings that the EU has in infrastructure so that these facilities can scale. Also detect which infrastructures in the railway sector are incompatible with each other, and convert everything to the European gauge standard.
This cyber defense policy is part of a broader four-year plan to improve European military mobility. This has been pointed out by Internal Market Commissioner, Thierry Bretonremembering that «the return to high-intensity conflict forces us to review our approach to Europe’s security. It is time to improve our cooperation in cyber defense«.
Even before the invasion of Ukraine, Europe had suffered several cyberattacks, perhaps the most important of which knocked out the broadband modems of Viasat customers, an hour before the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. by land.
Although its purpose was to disrupt communications in Ukraine during the invasion by remotely wiping the firmware of modems, it also disabled thousands of small-aperture terminals in Ukraine, but also in Europe. It eliminated satellite connectivity for users, as well as remote monitoring of 5,800 wind turbines in Germany.
Also, there have been several DDoS attacks against European countries since the war started. Among them, the largest DDoS attack known to date, against an organization in Eastern Europe. Nothing less than 700 million packets per second.
Last May, the Council of Europe put forward a proposal for a cyber defense policy, which has led to this week’s actions, and which asks the member states to implement the specific coordinated actions that are proposed in their policies.
