The European Commission (EC) has launched its strategy to build a Joint Cyber Unit to tackle large scale cyberattacks, according to the BBC.
The publication noted that recent ransomware incidents on critical services in EU member state Ireland and the US had ‘focused minds’ on the issue.
The EC stated that a dedicated team of multinational cyber experts will be deployed to European countries during serious attacks. It also argued that cyberattacks had risen in Europe from 432 in 2019 to 756 in 2020.
The commission is aiming to make the Joint Cyber Unit operational by June 2022 and be fully established by June 2023.
The global fight against cybercrime has continued to heat up as cyberattacks become more and more regular worldwide. The US has faced a flurry of attacks, ranging from SolarWinds last year to the Colonial Pipeline hack in May this year. Nuclear weapons contractor Sol Oriens was also recently compromised by ransomware group REvil.
To tackle the rising threats, the US government recently formed a ransomware task force. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has also recently warned that ransomware is the biggest cyber threat in the country.
EU commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton said that the unit will not compete with the other national cyber organisations or duplicate their work, and promised to build a team to provide support virtually and physically, using resources ‘from one country to another’ to provide operational and technical assistance.
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