On Oct. 28, members of the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to strengthen the cybersecurity rules across the 27 member nations of the European Union, as cyber attacks multiply and intensify EU-wide.
As a staff report from the Lyons, France-based Euronews published on Thursday evening noted, “MEPs [members of the European Parliament] have voted almost unanimously to strengthen the bloc's cybersecurity rules, in order to protect from a rapidly increasing amount of online attacks. Rarely at a parliamentary level has there been such a consensus in wanting to improve the security of European networks, with European lawmakers on the Industry, Research and Energy committee adopting the new rules by 70 votes to 3,” the report said.
And it quoted Bart Groothuis, the Dutch MEP in charge of the issue, explaining why the update is so crucial. "It is very important that we move fast at a fast pace so that hackers do not prefer to come to Europe and strike here, but also to heighten security posture and to broaden the scope of it,” Groothuis told EuroNews. "Because it is also important that we've seen a ransomware pandemic growing across the globe but especially across Europe in the pandemic we've seen hospitals being attacked but also institutions."
As the Euronews went on to say, “Some experts argue that the greater the safety, the greater the control, but Yoann Kassianides, the managing director at the Alliance for Digital Trust says it is the opposite. ‘No, cybersecurity doesn't constrain the user and is not dangerous,’ Kassianides said. ‘On the contrary, the tools and solutions developed by companies are tools that will allow our freedoms to be guaranteed and that is why it's urgent to give our regulatory bodies the ability to protect us.”
And a report on the same day in Euro Examiner also quoted Kassianides, as he stated that, ”No, cybersecurity does not constrict the individual and also is not hazardous. On the other hand, the devices and also options established by firms are devices that will certainly permit our liberties to be assured which is why it’s immediate to provide our governing bodies the capability to secure us,” Kassianides claimed.”
And it quoted Groothuis as stating that “We spend 41 percent less in cybersecurity than what Americans do. Generally. That is something that we actually need to resolve. As well as it is extremely essential that we do so in order to respond to risks that come primarily from Russia when it involves ransomware yet likewise from nation-state strikes from China, Iran and also others that attempt to penetrate our networks in order to obtain a geopolitical result.”
“The ballot on Thursday was an upgrade to a 2017 cybersecurity regulation,” Euro Examiner stated. “The European Parliament will certainly currently need to go right into settlements with the 27 participant states, stood for by the European Council, in order to pertain to a contract on the form of the brand-new regulations.”
Cyber threats intensifying across Europe
The European Parliament’s vote on Wednesday took place amid dramatically accelerating cybersecurity threats across the continent. Indeed, on that very same day, ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cyber Security, posted its “ENISA Threat Landscape 2021” report, finding that “Cybersecurity threats are on the rise. Ransomware ranks as a prime threat for the reporting period. For each of the identified threats, attack techniques, notable incidents and trends are identified alongside recommendations,” the press release announcing the report’s release, stated. “The new report also features a list of trends concerning threat actors. The cybersecurity threat landscape has grown in terms of sophistication of attacks, complexity and impact. Such a trend is spurred by an ever-growing online presence, the transitioning of traditional infrastructures to online solutions, advanced interconnectivity and the exploitation of new features of emerging technologies. Without surprise, supply-chains attacks rank highly among prime threats because of the significant potential they have in inducing catastrophic cascading effects. The risk is such that ENISA recently produced a dedicated threat landscape report for this specific category of threat,” the press release added.
The report identified nine “threat groups” that have been materializing over the past year:
ransomware
mMalware
cryptojacking
e-mail-related threats
threats against data
threats against availability and integrity
disinformation – misinformation
non-malicious threats
supply-chain attacks
And the press release noted that “The COVID-19 crisis has created possibilities for adversaries who used the pandemic as a dominant lure in campaigns for email attacks for instance. Monetisation appears to be the main driver of such activities.”
