“Participation of EU officials at the Cyber Security Council has enabled both sides to present chief cybersecurity policy priorities and development directions. This meeting is important to Lithuania because of the transfer of the ambitious future EU cybersecurity legislation into national legislation and their enforcement, not just because of the legislation already in force,” said Chair of the Cyber Security Council, Vice Minister of National Defence Margiris Abukevičius. “We want to see cybersecurity ensured at EU level both, technically and strategically.” Vice Minister also presented Lithuania’s cybersecurity policy priorities and international projects Lithuania had initiated.
“The European Commission is enhancing cybersecurity by proposing common safety regulations for IT and communications products used in the internal EU market,” said L. Boix Alonso. The European Council representative stressed that the majority of cyber-attacks take place precisely as a result of cybersecurity bugs in such products.
The Cyber Resilience Act which would complement other EU-level cybersecurity legislation, the NIS2 Directive and the Cybersecurity Act, is aimed to ensure EU-level security of digital products and software. The European Commission representative also introduced to members of the Council other major EU cybersecurity initiatives: the prospective investment in the EU Security Operation Centers (SOCs) and readiness to control large-scale cybersecurity crises with other EU member states.
ENISA Executive Director J. Lepassaar presented to the Council the Threat Landscape 2022 which identifies key cybersecurity threats prevailing in the EU, such as malware and supply chain attacks. The public sector and the general public are identified as the most targeted among all sectors. J. Lepassaar also pointed out the future security threats (i.e. year 2030) defined at the ENISA event in May 2022, the most important of which were: supply chain compromise of software dependencies; advanced disinformation campaigns; rise of digital surveillance authoritarianism / loss of privacy. The ENISA chief presented different ENISA initiatives aimed at supporting member states at EU legislation implementation and operational cybersecurity levels alike.
While in Lithuania, the guests also attended the BlueOLEX 2022 annual EU crisis response exercise on November 7. The event honed EU readiness to provide a joint response to large-scale cyber incidents and crises.
