Mission

Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility. Europe strives for a cross sectoral, all-inclusive cooperation framework. ENISA plays a key role in stimulating active cooperation between the cybersecurity stakeholders in Member States and the EU institutions and agencies. It strives to ensure complementarity of common efforts, by adding value to the stakeholders, exploring synergies and effectively using limited cybersecurity expertise and resources. Communities should be empowered to scale up the cybersecurity model.

Cybersecurity is the cornerstone of digital transformation and the need for it permeates all sectors, therefore it needs to be considered across a broad range of policy fields and initiatives. Cybersecurity must not be restricted to a specialist community of technical cyber experts. Cybersecurity must therefore be embedded across all domains of EU policy. Avoiding fragmentation and the need for a coherent approach while taking into account the specificities of each sector is essential.

The benefits of the European digital economy and society can only be fully attained under the premise of cybersecurity. Cyber-attacks know no borders. All layers of society can be impacted and the Union needs to be ready to respond to massive (large scale and cross-border) cyber-attacks and cyber crisis. Cross-border interdependencies have highlighted the need for effective cooperation between Member States and the EU institutions for faster response and proper coordination of efforts at all levels (strategic, operational, technical and communications).

The frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks is rising speedily, while at the same time the use of ICT infrastructures and technologies by individuals, organisations, and industries is increasing rapidly. The needs for cybersecurity knowledge and competences exceeds the supply. The EU has to invest in building competences and talents in cybersecurity at all levels, from the non-expert to the highly skilled professional. The investments should focus not only on increasing the cybersecurity skillset in the Member States but also on making sure that the different operational communities possess the appropriate capacity to deal with the cyber threat landscape.

Digital products and services bring benefits as well as risks, and these risks must be identified and mitigated. In the process of evaluating security of digital solutions and ensuring their trustworthiness, it is essential to adopt a common approach, with the goal to strike a balance between societal, market, economic and cybersecurity needs. A neutral entity acting in a transparent manner will increase customer trust on digital solutions and the wider digital environment.

Numerous new technologies, still in their infancy or close to mainstream adoption, would benefit from the use of foresight methods. Through a structured process enabling dialogue among stakeholders, decision- and policy-makers would be able to define early mitigation strategies that improve the EU resilience to cybersecurity threats and find solutions to address emerging challenges.

The energy that fuels the mill of cybersecurity is information and knowledge. For cybersecurity professionals to be efficient at tackling our objectives, to work in a constantly moving environment \u2013 in terms of digital developments as well as with regard to actors \u2013 to face the challenges of our time, we need a continuous process of collecting, organising, summarising, analysing, communicating, and maintaining cybersecurity information and knowledge. All phases are essential to ensure that\r\ninformation and knowledge is shared and expanded within the EU cybersecurity ecosystem.