Largest cyber security exercise “Cyber Europe 2012’’ report published in 23 languages

The scope, scale and complexity of “Cyber Europe 2012” in figures:

• Twenty-nine EU (European Union) and EFTA (European Free Trade Association) Member States were involved in the exercise; twenty-five as active players and four as observers. In addition, several EU-Institutions also participated.
• Overall, 339 organisations took part, totalling 571 individual players being exposed to thousands of incidents (‘injects’). They included: cyber-security agencies and organisations, relevant ministries, e-government services, financial institutions (60), Internet Service Providers (ISPs) (60), and telecommunication operators.
• The majority (88%) of the exercise players rated it positively.
• Cyber Europe 2012 attracted considerable global media attention; more than 600 articles were published in 19 languages.

Key Findings (excerpts) 

• Knowledge of procedures and information flows is crucial for fast and effective response

• Frequent cooperation and information exchange between public and private players is necessary

• Public–private cooperation structures differ among countries. Parallel, and sometimes overlapping, public and private procedures on the national level thus challenged national level cooperation
• Countries faced challenges in crisis management decision making, although this was not included in the exercise objectives (e.g., decisions have to be taken at more strategic levels)
• Scalability of operational procedures was a challenge, due to the large number of countries
• Up-to-date technical infrastructures and tools were critical for effective cooperation
• Efficient planning is crucial for conducting large-scale exercises

Key recommendations

• More pan-European and national cyber exercises are necessary to improve cross country cyber crisis cooperation, which the ENISA Good Practice Guide on National Exercises supports.
• EU Member States and EFTA countries should improve the effectiveness, scalability, and knowledge of existing mechanisms, procedures and information flows for both national and international cooperation
• More training in crisis procedures is necessary for all cyber-crisis stakeholders
• Increased private sector involvement at the national level should be considered for future exercises
• Input from other European critical sectors (e.g. energy, transportation) is a good next step.

The Executive Director of ENISA, Professor Udo Helmbrecht, concluded: “Cyber Europe 2012 was an important milestone to build trust, to better understand the existing European cyber cooperation mechanisms, and to strengthen Europe’s cyber-incident management”

For full report in all 23 EU official languages : Cyber Europe 2012 - Key findings report

Background: The first Cyber Europe exercise in 2010,COM/2009/149, Digital Agenda for Europe, and COM/2011/163.

For interviews; Ulf Bergstrom, Spokesman, [email protected], mobile: +30 6948 460 143, or Dr Panagiotis Trimintzios, Exercise Director, [email protected]