CybersecurityJoint EU and U.S. cyber security exercise to be held this year
The United States and the European Union (EU) recently announced that they will hold joint cyber war exercises by the end of 2011; the exercise comes as part of a broader agreement to expand efforts to jointly defend against cyber security threats; the two sides agreed to share best practices, engage the private sector, and increase global cyber incident response capabilities; in particular, the agreement will focus on fighting botnets, securing industrial control systems, and enhancing the resilience and stability of the internet
The United States and the European Union (EU) recently announced that they will hold joint cyber war exercises by the end of 2011. The exercise comes as part of a broader agreement to expand efforts to jointly defend against cyber security threats.
The joint exercises were announced after last week’s meeting between DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano and the EU home affairs commissioner Cecillia Malmstrom in Budapest, Hungary where the two security chiefs discussed increasing preparedness against cyber threats.
The United States has regularly held cyber security exercises for several years, while the European Union recently held its first exercise, dubbed Cyber Europe, last year.
The two sides agreed to share best practices, engage the private sector, and increase global cyber incident response capabilities.
After the meeting, Secretary Napolitano said, in a statement, “The United States is fully committed to working with our European partners to combat threats to our mutual security and economic stability. Together, we will enhance information sharing, strengthen cyber security and ensure the security and resilience of our global supply chain systems against terrorism and transnational crime.”
In particular, the agreement will focus on fighting botnets, securing industrial control systems, and enhancing the resilience and stability of the internet.
Officials also agreed to work closely to remove child pornography from the Internet by teaming up with domain-name registrars and registries.
These joint efforts are aimed at formalizing ad hoc cooperative agreements and streamline coordination. The agreement will be overseen by the EU-U.S. Working Group on Cyber Security and Cyber Crime that was established at the EU-U.S. summit in November 2010.
The United States and the European Union are also hoping to expand the Council of Europe Convention on Cyber Crime treaty. Currently thirty countries have signed the treaty, which is considered as the global standard for cyber security and cyber crime investigation.
U.S. and EU officials seek to push the treaty beyond Europe and are actively encouraging other countries ratify it.
At the end of the year, officials from both sides of the Atlantic will meet once more to evaluate the progress of their efforts.
