On Wednesday, 28 June, the respective European Commissioners for Security and Home Affairs,, Julian King and Dimitris Avramopoulos, informed the College of Commissioners about the situation following the recent cyber attacks that have affected several European countries.
The most recent cyber attack on Tuesday 27 June was launched by the “NotPetya” “ransom software” and initially affected Ukraine and Russia before spreading to Europe and the US. The Rosnef oil group and the Merck and Saint-Gobain laboratories were particularly affected.
According to the Commission spokesperson, Margaritis Schinas, neither the Commission “nor any other institution” was not affected by this new cyber attack. Europol’s cybercrime centre and the European Network Information Security Agency (ENISA), however, are continuing to assess the situation, explained the Commission spokesperson. He called for all actors concerned, to step up their cooperation, particularly with Ukraine.
The EU, particularly Julian King and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, are currently re-evaluating their cyber security strategy, which will be presented in September and which is also expected to include targeted initiatives in an effort to meet this challenge accordingly, explained Margaritis Schinas.
In May, an enormous cyber attack took place across the world and on this occasion was called “Wannacry”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)