On the 30th January, ECSO attended a EU-US Cyber Industry Debrief together with DIGITALEUROPE, The European External Action Service (EEAS), Business Europe, the European Commission and with Members from the industry participating online. The meeting was held to deliberate on the 8th EU-US Cyber Dialogue, held on the 15th and 16th December, 2023. Topics addressed included: enhanced cyber resilience, alignment on EU Regulations and to achieve a stable cyberspace.
In a nutshell, on the 15th and 16th December 2022, ECSO attended the 8th EU-US Cyber Dialogue, held in Washington DC. Some key topics discussed were: the EU Cyber Resilience Act, the NIS2 Directive, the US Cyber Incident Reporting Act on Critical Infrastructure Act, the US IoT Labelling Scheme, the Executive Order on Software, and related standardization work. Moreover, for the first time, a dedicated session on public-private partnerships was also held, exploring ways to further strengthen the role of the private sector in ensuring the security of cyberspace. Following this EU-US Cyber Dialogue, ECSO, together with DIGITALEUROPE, the EEAS, Business Europe and the European Commission, gathered to discuss the outcomes together with attendees from the European cybersecurity industry.
In her opening remarks, ECSO’s Chief Operations Officer, Joanna Świątkowska, welcomed the European External Action Service’s initiative to hold EU-US Cyber Dialogues, along with the continued involvement of the private sector in such discussions by decision-makers. Malicious cyber activities do not stop at country boarders, and to tackle international threats, international cooperation is necessary. Świątkowska continued to add that cybersecurity without the private sector and international cooperation is impossible.
A key message conveyed by ECSO in the Dialogue was the need for a wholistic approach to cybersecurity including end to end processes that cover all elements of the cybersecurity cycle: identify, detect, protect, respond and recover. Given the many ideas that exist on how to do this in practice, ECSO welcomed the audience in the discussion to share their thoughts.
The private sector that took part in the discussion virtually, welcomed the discussion and highlighted the following topics: processes around product standardisation, sectoral cooperation, harmonisation with other jurisdictions, technical mappings, the Cyber Diplomacy Toolbox, optimise existing structures, standardisation from a shared value perspective, and using the private sector in cyber response due to technical expertise and scalable service capacity.
ECSO is delighted to have had a fruitful discussion with many important topics lifted, and looks forward to future similar sessions.
