The need to equip and educate society and the system in Europe in order to tackle the ever-increasing cyber attacks – a threat against European values and principles, said the Vice President of the European Commission Margaritis Schoinasspeaking earlier today at the Cybersecurity Conference, on the sidelines of this year Munich Security Conference.
Mr Schoinas referred to the case of Belarus, where “an authoritarian regime uses human lives to put pressure on EU member states and to sow discord in our societies, as well as to use information distortion to advance its agenda.” attacking the West and the EU, our values and everything we stand for as Europeans. ” More recently, he noted, Ukraine has been hit by a wave of cyber-attacks aimed at destabilizing the country, while similar incidents of a more limited extent have occurred in Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Greece.
“This is not something innocent,” he said, referring to attacks that “are eroding in order to reach the heart of our society and our democracy” and are no longer solely for economic reasons. “They are increasingly targeting sectors and units critical to the functioning of our economies and societies, and when they succeed, behind services, behind oil suppliers and hospitals, there are the lives of citizens at stake,” he said.
THE Margaritis Schoinas stressed that these threats must be taken very seriously: “We can not allow these malicious players to infiltrate our defense, our institutions or the daily lives of our citizens. “We can not allow them to operate in the shadows, to paralyze the economies, to instill distrust in our institutions and to turn the citizens against each other,” he said. To this end, the European approach to security must be adapted to these threats, moving from the traditional perspective to the full range of actions and policies. “This is what we did in the crisis with Belarus. “We are ready to do the same with Ukraine, if the situation escalates further,” the Greek EU Commissioner added.
It is crucial, he continued, to mobilize all its capabilities cybersecurity. “We have to take cyberspace out of its technical framework and put it at the heart of our security and defense,” Schinas said, as he said before an enemy armored vehicle crossed the border or an aircraft violated the airspace. Internet attempts have been made to convince our citizens that they are not safe. “The European Union is ready to respond,” he said.
According to Mr. Schoinas, The European Commission is taking action in three directions:
It prepares the legal framework that will protect businesses and citizens, equipping Member States with the tools to ensure the real and digital security of critical units and infrastructure, and setting high standards in the supply chain cyber resilience. The European Cybersecurity Service (ENISA) estimates that supply chain attacks have quadrupled in 2021 compared to 2020. ” of information technology products “, which are usually more vulnerable to malicious players, added the Vice President of the Commission.
The second line of action concerns the need to continuously upgrade operational capabilities so that threats are detected in advance, but also to provide clear and dynamic responses. In this context, the EU is investing heavily in cybersecurity centers with new equipment and is working to unite the capabilities of Member States in all areas with the forthcoming Joint Government to ensure the timely exchange of information and coordination of the response.
The third aspect is to ensure the adequacy of human resources with the special skills required to use cybersecurity tools. “Today, unfortunately, Europe lacks professional cybersecurity experts,” Schinas said, calling for a joint effort to train such specialists, with the support of the Commission, through the Skills Pact. He even promised to return to the Munich Security Conference in 2023 and present the results of the effort. “It is a concrete promise, a commitment, because we need to show that our commitments are being implemented in practice and that Europe will have the cybersecurity experts it needs to deal with future security threats,” he said. and no one is immune to them. “That’s why we need to join forces with like-minded partners,” he said, referring to recent developments on the EU’s eastern border, which show that EU-US technical cooperation can be successful. “We must now bring this technological cyber-cooperation to the political level as well, to set global rules, while providing our friends, allies and neighbors with rapid operational support (…) in order to build a cycle of resilience both within the Union and around it “, concluded Margaritis Schoinas.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
