EU Electronic Communications Security Authorities Discussion on Incident reports and Policy
ENISA hosted the 33rd meeting of European Competent Authorities for Secure Electronic Communications (ECASEC). The group is comprised of EU authorities on security of electronic communications, formerly known as the ENISA Article 13a group.
Published on March 03, 2021
This 33rd meeting is dedicated to discussions about the incident reports of 2020, the results of the ENISA telecom security legislation assessment of 2020, the draft security profile for the Number-Independent Interpersonal Communication Service (NI-ICS) providers under the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC), the new EU telecom framework. The group was informed about the ENISA work programme, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) work programme and the European Commission’s NIS2 proposal.
The Swiss telecom regulator informed the group about its work on power grid dependencies. The group also selected a Vice-Chair, Ahmet Yesilyurt, a representative of the German authority for telecom security, who will be supporting the Chair, Warna Munzebrock, a representative of the Dutch Radiocommunications Agency.
Details about the meeting
This 33rd meeting was held over 2 days, the first on 18th February and the second, today, the 3rd March. It was attended by 60 experts from national authorities, from EU, EFTA, EEA, and EU candidate countries, who are supervising the European telecom sector.
This is the first of the three regular meetings of the group in 2021. The group will meet again in mid-June 2021.
First day
On the first day of the meeting, the group received an update from BEREC on their present engagements. In the context of forming an opinion for the NIS 2 Directive proposal, BEREC reached the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) through a survey. BEREC presented the results of the survey on the NIS competences of the NRAs.
Boryana Hristova-Ilieva, from the European Commission’s DG CONNECT, presented the NIS 2 proposal and answered questions.
Also, ENISA presented the results of the Assessment of the EU Telecom Security Legislation, based on an online survey and interviews of experts working in National Telecom Security authorities and national competent authorities for the NIS Directive. The outcome of the assessment was overall positive, especially as far as the added value of the ECASEC Group and the role of ENISA are concerned. The need of building trust between authorities and providers was also concluded.
The Group discussed with great interest the upcoming 2021 projects led by ENISA. Getting input from authorities and providers, ENISA is going to analyse sim card swapping attacks and also research consumer outreach strategies on security threats and mitigation measures, which is provisioned in the new EECC.
Second day
Today, the discussions focused on the initial findings steering from the annual incident reports of 2020and the analysis of the 188 incidents reported in 2020. Also the Swiss Regulatory Authority gave an update on their work regarding proposed countermeasures to harden the networks against power problems.
ENISA presented the work on the security profile of the Number-Independent Interpersonal Communication Services (NI-ICS) providers, also known as Over The Top (OTT) providers.
Based on unanimous decision, Warna Munzebrock will continue to be Chair of the ECASEC Expert Group for the next 2 years starting from June 2021 and will be assisted by Ahmet Yesilyurt, a representative of the German authority for telecom security, who is appointed Group Vice-Chair.
Background on ECASEC Expert Group, formerly known as the ENISA Article 13a group
Established in 2010, the ENISA Article 13a Expert Group, now ECASEC EG, consists of more than 50 experts from national telecom security authorities from all EU countries, the EFTA countries, and EU candidate countries. The group is a forum for exchanging information and good practices on telecom security. It produces policy guidelines for European authorities on the implementation of EU telecom security rules, and publishes annual summary report about major telecom security incidents.
This group has been meeting 3 times per year since 2010, to discuss and agree on a common approach to telecom security supervision in the EU.
This work is done under ENISA's Annual work programme Output O.1.2.3 “Support incident reporting activities in the EU”.
Further Information
ENISA Incident Reporting webpage
Contact
For questions related to the press and interviews, please contact: press(at)enisa.europa.eu
To know more about the ECASEC Expert Group's work, or to join the telecom security mailing lists, to be up to date about our telecom security work or to receive invitations for future telecom security meetings, please contact us via resilience (at) enisa.europa.eu
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