Businesses will play a key role in a €24.3bn (£16bn) cyber
security agency unveiled by the European Commission this week to
combat the growing threats posed by computer viruses, hacking and
denial-of-service attacks.
The European Network and Information Security Agency aims to act as
a central resource for European countries facing security threats
and will set out to tackle Europe's patchy performance on
information security.
The proposed agency, the fruit of six years' work by the EC, will
give businesses a single contact point for influencing the
development of European policy on computer security.
"For business, it will mean there will be one voice for information
security policies in Europe," said Lorenzo Valeri, senior security
analyst at Rand Europe.
A key task of the new body will be to encourage countries to
collaborate on information security with a view to improving their
ability to respond to major information security problems.
The agency also plans to collect and analyse data from member
states on security threats and to independent issue advice on how
best to respond to them.
"It will make businesses more secure, especially the small and
medium-sized companies. They will have access to well developed
guidelines that are not currently available," said Valeri.
The agency, which plans to appoint experts from business to an
advisory board that will supplement its initial staff of 30, also
plans to work with security suppliers to ensure their products and
services can work together.
Announcing the proposals, Erkkii Liikanen, commissioner for
enterprise and the information society, said that co-ordination
across Europe on information security was not yet adequate. "Member
states are in different stages of their work and approaches vary.
There is no systematic cross-border co-operation on network and
information security, although security issues cannot be an
isolated issue for only one country."
n In a separate development, the Cabinet Office is to create an
information security unit to co-ordinate IT security across
government. The unit, to be headed by e-envoy Andrew Pinder, will
have a staff of 20. It aims to promote best practice, risk
management, and to identify any gaps in information security.