European Commission Approves New Cybersecurity Investment

European Commission Approves New Cybersecurity Investment

  • By Sydny Shepard
  • Jul 11, 2016

The European Commission signed an agreement on July 5, which will result in member states funding and working together with private groups on cybersecurity.

The specifics have yet to be revealed, but we know that the EU has put together €450 million, which will be distributed in the coming years to businesses, universities and other researchers who are interested in investigating pressing cybersecurity problems.

The commission says that the agreement is designed to “nurture cybersecurity industrial capabilities and innovation in the EU.”

The recently founded European Cyber Security Organization will work together with tech companies and local governments to determine where the funding should go. The current plan asks the teams to put out its first call for proposals in early 2017. The commission expects that, throughout the course of this partnership, private sources will end up investing in cybersecurity "three times more" than the initial €450 million in public contributions, for a total of up to €1.8 billion in new investment by 2020.

A number of areas have been identified as the focus of the funding such as securing identities online, training workers on cybersecurity, and developing new protections for cloud infrastructure.

"Cybersecurity incidents cause major economic damage of hundreds of billions of euros each year to European businesses and the economy at large," the commission writes in a memo. It notes that over €600 million has already been directed to cybersecurity projects, but that "more work is needed to address the increasing number and complexity of cyberthreats."

One of the specific steps the commission outlines is making it easier to offer cybersecurity solutions throughout the EU. It hopes to establish a certification framework that'll allow products and services to be certified once and then offered in any member state.


About the Author

Sydny Shepard is the Executive Editor of Campus Security & Life Safety.

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