New Security Challenges in the IT Sector. What Can Europe Do? (by Moritz Schneider)
July 11 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Guest column by Moritz Schneider, political journalist from Berlin.
More than 250 million Europeans are now regular Internet users, 80% of them have broadband connections and 60% of public services in the EU are fully available online. According to the European Commission's ICT (Information and Communication Technology) progress report, Europe is among the world leaders in the development of the digital economy. While all spheres of economy, administration and in the public area are connecting millions of people, with the explosion of exciting new possibilities also come a set of new risks. The more connected and interactive the global market is, the more grows the demand for security. Global interconnectivity implies disappearance of national-network boundaries so the European states need to concentrate their efforts on effective international and regional cooperation among governments, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders.
What might surprise a few readers, the EU has already established an agency to improve the network and information society in their member states. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) was created 2004 in Heraklion on Crete to tackle the existing security issues. Together with the EU-institutions and the member states, ENISA seeks to develop a secure digital environment for citizens, consumers, businesses and public sector organizations in the EU and to create a borderless and transnational cooperation in all the fields of network and information society. Equipped with an annual budget of €8.16m the agency monitors incidents and emerging risks in order to address security problems and prevent them from happening in the future. Its pool of experts gives advice and recommendations, provides data analysis, as well as supports awareness raising. ENISA shall also contribute to strengthen the EU's internal market by ensuring the interoperability of security functions in networks and information systems.
ENISA's profile can be seen as a transmitter between the Member states and the EU to improve communication between industry and consumers and to play an important role as advisor for all NIS related areas. "The mix of competencies" should be a mayor characteristic of the agency, an extern Evaluation report said about the ENISA. Other already existing private or public institutions are mainly working in one field of the NIS, for example in research, legal service or software security. The agency should become a well-established single European voice for security problems and act as an expert body supporting the institutional stakeholders in the first place.
However, the theory and aspiration differ from the reality. ENISA's competencies are in fact much more limited as operative and regulative tasks are out of the agency's reach. Domestic areas like the national security or national law of the members states will probably never touched by ENISA. Therefore, it fits that most stakeholders do not see the need to give ENISA more power or operational tasks
Another problem examined by the Evaluation report is the "lack of visions, focus and flexibility, troubled relations between administrative board and agency and location problems for the acquiration of employees and the networking". Especially industry criticized already the lack of visibility of the Agency as a critical flaw.
The future of the agency is not clear so far. Until now, ENISA will run until 2009, after then the European Commission has to decide whether its mandate will be continued. Right now the odds are in favour that the Agency can continue its work. Following the Council decision in the beginning of June 2008 to prolong ENISA's mandate until 2012, on 17 June the European Parliament (EP) also voted in favour of an extension. Let us hope that Europe will get some more vital signs from the Greece Island.
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