Europe prepares for cyberattacks with large-scale simulations
Cyber surveillance
(VILNIUS) - Senior cybersecurity representatives of EU states, the Commission and the EU's cybersecurity agency took part Monday in a two-day large-scale exercise to test crisis management procedures.
Hosted in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, the 4th Blue OLEx exercise took place physically on 7 November for the first time since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Blue OLEx is a high-level event organised each year by one Member State and supported by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), in collaboration with the Commission. Its aim is to test the EU's preparedness in the event of a cyber-related crisis affecting the EU Member States and to strengthen the cooperation between the national cybersecurity authorities, the European Commission and ENISA.
ENISA participates both as the exercise organiser and the secretariat of the EU CyCLONe empowering the network both in terms of tools and expertise.
The EU CyCLONe functions at the "operational level", which is the intermediate level between the technical and strategic/political levels.
The formal tasks under NISD2 are:
- increasing the level of preparedness of the management of large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises;
- developing a shared situational awareness for large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises;
- assessing the consequences and impact of relevant large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises and proposing possible mitigation measures;
- coordinating the management of large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises and supporting decision-making at political level in relation to such incidents and crises;
- discussing national cybersecurity incident and crisis response plans.
"More than ever, we have seen malicious actors developing new strategies to target our digital infrastructure and services, putting citizens and companies at risk," said internal market Commissioner Thierry Breton: "Cyberattacks are everywhere and it is our shared responsibility to work collectively in preparing and implementing rapid emergency response plans, in particular in the event of a large-scale cyber incident or crisis.".