Brussels, 31/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - On 31 January, the European Network and Information Security Network (ENISA) published a report on the cyber-attack simulation exercise that was carried out at European level on 4 October 2012 (see EUROPE 10703). The exercise had three objectives - to test the effectiveness and development capacity of the mechanisms, procedures and information flows for public authorities' cooperation in Europe; to examine cooperation between public and private stakeholders in Europe; to identify gaps and challenges on how wide-scale cyber incidents could be handled more effectively in Europe. Several hundred experts in digital security took part in the exercise, including players from the public and private sector (financial, telecommunications and internet).
The main conclusions that ENISA draws from this exercise are: (1) knowledge of procedures and information flows is crucial for fast and effective response; (2) frequent cooperation and information exchange between public and private players is necessary; (3) public-private cooperation structures differ among the countries. Parallel, and sometimes overlapping, public and private procedures on the national level challenge national level cooperation; (4) countries faced challenges in crisis management decision-making, although this was not included in the exercise objectives (for example, decisions have to be taken at more strategic levels).
The report is available in 23 languages on the ENISA website: http://www.enisa.europa.eu (IL/transl.fl)