CySOPEx 2021: EU Member States test rapid cyber crisis management
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- Published: Tuesday, 25 May 2021 08:48
Last week EU Member States took part in CySOPEx 2021, the first ever exercise of the recently established EU CyCLONe - Cyber Crises Liaison Organisation Network.
The CyCLONe network links the technical level (CSIRTs) to the political level during a large-scale cross-border cyber crisis, to ensure the most effective management of the crisis at an operational level and to ensure the regular exchange of information among Member States and Union institutions, bodies and agencies.
The CySOPex exercise tested Member States’ procedures for fast cyber crisis management in the EU when facing large-scale, cross-border cyber incidents and crisis. All Member States and the European Commission took part in the exercise organised by Portugal as Presidency of the Council of the European Union and CyCLONe Chair and by the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) that acts as the secretariat of the CyCLONe.
CyCLONe Chair and representative of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU João Alves said: “CySOPex 2021 is an important milestone for the CyCLONe network, bringing together Member States, ENISA and European Commission to better prepare and coordinate rapid response procedures in case of a large-scale cross-border cyber incident or crisis. Recent events have shown the importance of such cooperation and aligned response. CySOPex reflects everyone’s engagement in the present and, foremost, in the future.”
ENISA Executive Director Juhan Lepassaar said: “Enabling the coordination of all the actors involved at operational, technical and political levels is an important element of efficient response to cross-border cyber security incidents. Testing these capabilities is a sine qua non to prepare for the future cyber-attacks."
The goals of the CyCLONe exercise were to:
- Train on situational awareness and information sharing processes,
- Improve understanding of roles and responsibilities in the context of CyCLONe,
- Identify improvements and/or potential gaps in the standardised way of responding to incidents and crises (i.e. standard operating procedures),
- Test the CyCLONe cooperation tools and exercise infrastructures provided by ENISA.