Cybersecurity exercise boosts preparedness of EU Agencies to respond to cyber incidents

On 8 October, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), in cooperation with the Computer Emergency Response Team for the EU Institutions, Bodies and Agencies (CERT-EU), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), produced the first cybersecurity exercise for the ICT Advisory Committee of the EU Agencies and Institutions (ICTAC) to help enhance their cooperation and information sharing in the face of cyber-attacks. The exercise took place during the Committee’s 36th meeting, which was held in a virtual format.

More than fifty representatives from EU Agencies, managers of IT units and Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), together with observers from the European Commission, participated in this first remote EU tabletop exercise (with the code name ICTAC Ex 2020). They were asked to respond to specific cyber incidents and decide on the optimal response measures. The scenario involved incidents related to defacement, spear phishing campaigns and ransomware.

The ICTAC Exercise is in line with the European Commission’s Blueprint on the prevention, preparedness, response and recovery to large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises. The exercise was carried out using the Cyber Exercise Platform of the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and tested the CERT-EU’s technical Standard Operational Procedures (SOPs). It also provided valuable lessons on the organisation of such events in virtual format in the future.

More Information

About the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, visit www.enisa.europa.eu | @ENISA_EU

About CERT-EU, visit cert.europa.eu | @CERTEU

About the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, visit www.ecdc.europa.eu | @ECDC_EU

About the European Food Safety Authority, visit www.efsa.europa.eu |@EFSA_EU

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