A joint report by the Member States, the European Commission and ENISA, the European cybersecurity agency, published on Wednesday 24 July, analyses the degree of cybersecurity resilience and protection of Europe's critical infrastructures.
The risks identified focus particularly on supply chains in the telecoms, 5G networks and energy infrastructure sectors.
The report considers that the electricity sector is the most exposed to the risk of espionage or sabotage, due to “the difficulty of properly vetting new staff and attracting local talent in the field of cybersecurity”.
As far as the telecoms sector is concerned, the main threats identified are attacks via roaming data infrastructures and attacks caused by bot networks.
Physical sabotage of cable infrastructures and jamming of satellite signals also represent specific risks that are “particularly difficult to mitigate”.
According to the report, the EU suffers from a lack of resources and qualified professionals specifically in cybersecurity. As a result, some attacks, particularly those carried out by third countries, are more difficult to thwart.
Several options for improving the current situation are presented in the report. Overall, it is recommended that the Member States significantly improve their cooperation to better identify the warning signs of attacks and the protective measures to be put in place.
Similarly, better identifying the critical dependence of certain supply chains on so-called “high-risk” third countries would help to reduce certain threats.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/d42 (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)