The European Cybersecurity Competence Center (ECCC) was officially opened on Tuesday in Bucharest, the first European entity based in Romania to ensure the functioning of the EU-wide Cyber Shield.
ECCC became “a reality” almost two years ago, and the governing board has already been “quite active for some time, holding meetings, first online, because of the pandemic, and then in person”, ECCC acting Executive Director Miguel González-Sancho said.
Hiring staff was possible only after we had a “house”. He added that there are currently 14 staff, but the number will grow steadily until there are 40 next year.
The ECCC headquarters is housed in a Politehnica University of Bucharest building. Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă admitted that the centre’s headquarters are not yet completely ready, but Romanian authorities wanted to symbolically inaugurate it on Europe Day.
This is also why the press did not have access to the entire Center but only to an area arranged for the officials’ speeches.
The European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) will ensure the functioning of the EU-wide Cyber Shield, said Roberto Viola, Director-General of the European Commission’s Department for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT).
The EU official said that Europe is becoming increasingly digitised, and there are many advantages but also risks.
”The risk is that opponents of democracy will attack European democracy, Europe’s foundations and the way of life of citizens. That is why a primary objective for Europe is to remain strong in this area of cyber security,” Viola said.
He added, “The Centre has a very important task, to strengthen cyber security competence across Europe and also to become fully operational.”
In these circumstances, the Commission’s proposal was to create a network of cooperation between centres, providing a security shield that would “continuous monitoring of the environment, to identify those weaknesses so that we can, at any time, identify and combat an attack, if it occurs, to protect our assets and citizens”, he said, adding that the Centre in Bucharest will be responsible for acquiring, operating and networking these individual operational centres.”
He explained that the centre will also involve rapid technical intervention teams.
Rapid technical response teams will be able to intervene anywhere in Europe, detect and protect during a cyber attack, analyse it and then, based on the findings, “improve our systems, understand what has been done, where mistakes have been made and how things can be improved for the future”.
The European Cybersecurity Competence Centre (ECCC) aims to increase Europe’s cybersecurity capacities and competitiveness, working together with a Network of National Coordination Centres (NCCs) to build a strong cybersecurity Community.
The ECCC will develop and implement, with member states, industry and the cybersecurity technology Community, a common agenda for technology development and its wide deployment in areas of public interest and businesses, particularly SMEs.
(Cătălina Mihai | EURACTIV.ro)
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