March 6, 2024 will mark the political agreement reached between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the Cyber Solidarity Act.
Motivated in large part by the rise in cyberattacks since the start of the war on Europe’s doorstep, the European Union’s cyber solidarity legislation was driven by all 27 EU member countries in favor of European cyber resilience (Cyber Resilience Act).
This cyber solidarity legislation will therefore help improve preparedness, detection and response to cybersecurity incidents across the EU.
Here are the actions presented in this new cyber solidarity legislation:
I] A European cyber shield
This alert system will be made up of a network of national and cross-border cyber hubs (SOC) across the entire territory of the EU.
These Security Operations Centers (SOC) will rely on state-of-the-art tools and infrastructure such as artificial intelligence or advanced data analysis, to detect cyber threats and incidents at an early stage.
” Speed of detection is a key factor in responding to cyber threats. With the deployment of a European SOC infrastructure, we are improving reaction times and facilitating cooperation in order to achieve a true European shield for cyberspace. ” said Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market.
Using this infrastructure, the authorities and other entities concerned will be informed of the state of the cyber threat in real time.
II] A cyber emergency mechanism
This will strengthen preparedness and response capabilities in the face of the most significant or even large-scale cyber incidents.
Here are the three major areas supported by this mechanism:
Support for preparedness actions
By coordinating preparedness testing for potential vulnerabilities for entities operating in critical sectors, such as the health, finance or energy sectors, to name only those.
Testing these entities in crucial sectors will then make it possible to detect potential weaknesses that could make them vulnerable to cyber threats. A joint EU-level risk assessment is planned to select the entities to prioritize for carrying out these tests.
The creation of an EU cybersecurity reserve
This EU cybersecurity reserve will consist of incident response services provided by private service providers, so-called trusted providers. These trusted providers can therefore be deployed at the request of member states, EU institutions, bodies and agencies and under the Digital Europe programme, to help them in the face of major cybersecurity incidents.
” The European Parliament and the Council of Europe have also reached an agreement on the amendment of the Cybersecurity Act. This amendment opens the possibility of adopting European certification schemes for managed security services. It will make it possible to establish a framework for setting up trusted providers in the EU cybersecurity reserve under the Cyber Solidarity Act. ” writes the European Commission on its website.
Financial support and insurance for mutual assistance
This mechanism will make it possible to support a member state that provides assistance to another member state affected by a cybersecurity incident.
III] A European cybersecurity incident review mechanism
Given that significant incidents have already occurred, this European mechanism will be intended to review and assess the criticality of these cyber incidents with the aim of formulating recommendations to improve the EU’s cybersecurity position.
At the request of the European Commission or of national authorities such as the EU-CyCLONe network or the CSIRTs network, it is the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) that will be responsible for reviewing so-called significant or large-scale cybersecurity incidents, and that should present a report setting out the conclusions drawn from these cyberattacks or, where appropriate, make its recommendations to improve the EU’s cybersecurity response capacity.
Conclusion
In the context of an ordinary legislative procedure of the European Union, an informal inter-institutional negotiation (trilogue) bringing together representatives of the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union and the European Commission must take place.
This cyber solidarity legislation will then be submitted for formal approval by the European Parliament and the Council. Once formally adopted, this Cyber Solidarity Regulation will enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal.
The Cyber Solidarity Regulation will subsequently increase funding for cybersecurity actions under the Digital Europe (DIGITAL) programme for the period 2025-2027.
