During 2016 over 1,000 participants from all 28 EU Member States, along with Switzerland and Norway, took part in a simulated cyber crisis which lasted for over six months, culminating in a 48‑hour event on 13th and 14th October 2016. ENISA has now issued a report which captures the key findings and recommendations from the exercise.
Key recommendations were:
1. Following their revision, the operational procedures which drive the cooperation activities during a cyber crisis should be endorsed by the CSIRTs Network established by the Network and Information Security Directive. Training opportunities on the use of these procedures and tailored exercises should be offered regularly.
2. An EU-level cyber crisis cooperation framework is currently being developed by the European Commission. It should build upon the findings from Cyber Europe 2016 to develop interconnections between cooperation mechanisms, identify and empower key actors, from CSIRTs to law enforcement, and set a clear vision for the future of EU cyber response.
3. Future Cyber Europe exercises should focus on cooperation activities on technical and operational topics. Other options should be pursued to offer training and exercise opportunities on a variety of other topics increasingly associated with cybersecurity. In particular, ENISA should support EU-wide capacity building on cyber crisis communication.
Preparations for Cyber Europe 2018 have already started and details will be released in due course.
