Since 2008 ENISA is executing a Multiannual Thematic Program (MTP) with the ultimate objective to collectively evaluate and improve the resilience of public communications in Europe. Public communications network is every electronic communications network that is used for the provision of publicly available electronic communications services. Internet access and backbone networks, fixed line and mobile voice networks are examples of public communications networks.
About Resilience
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By the use of the term resilient we characterise the networks that provide and maintain an acceptable level of service in face of faults (unintentional, intentional, or naturally caused) affecting their normal operation. The main aim of the resilience is for faults to be invisible to users.
Improving the resilience of a network is an issue of risk management which includes :
- risk identification;
- evaluation, and
- acceptance or mitigation.
A wide accepted list of risks to the resilience of networks includes :
- flash crowd events;
- cyber attacks;
- outages of other support services;
- natural disasters, and
- system failings.
Resilience and security of communications networks and the services that they support is an issue of critical importance to the EU community and its citizens having an impact to the day-to-day operation of businesses but also affecting daily lives of EU citizens. In 2009 ENISA published a video spot explaining the importance of the resilience of communications networks and how is ENISA approaching the issue of improving it
The mitigation of identified risks affecting the resilience of public communication networks involves a number of technical measures, such as :
- resilient design;
- resilient transmission media;
- resilient equipment, and
- technologies that improve resilience.
Since 2008 ENISA is working in this area. In terms of technologies, the activities of ENISA can be groupped into the following categories: