Member states of the European union have reached a common position with regards to the formation of a Cyber Solidarity Act which aims to strengthen the EU’s solidarity and capacities to detect, prepare for and respond to cyber security threats and incidents.
The agreement was announced in a press release on the 20th December along with the announcement of a new Cyber Emergency Mechanism which aims to increase preparedness and enhance incident response capabilities in the EU and a Cyber Security Incident Review Mechanism which will enhance EU resilience by reviewing and assessing significant or large-scale cyber security incidents after they have taken place.
The Cyber Solidarity Act will allow EU member states to detect major cyber threats quickly and effectively, by establishing a ‘European cyber shield’, which is a pan-European infrastructure composed of national and cross-border security operations centres (SOCs) across the EU. These are entities in charge of sharing information and tasked with detecting and acting on cyber threats. They will use state-of-the-art technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced data analytics, to detect and share timely warnings on cyber threats and incidents across borders.
The Act was initially proposed back in April 2023 when a proposal was put forward for a regulation laying down measures to strengthen solidarity and capacities in the EU to detect, prepare for and respond to cybersecurity threats and incidents.
The total budget for all the actions under the EU cyber solidarity act is of €1.1 billion, of which about 2/3 will be financed by the EU through the digital Europe programme.