The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) welcomes the proposed new package of EU cybersecurity measures but points to weaknesses in addressing Europe’s huge cyber skills gap. Critical entities also need streamlining, simplification and clearer application guidelines, in the EESC’s view.
Overall, the EESC hails the new EU cybersecurity strategy as a positive step towards protecting governments, people and businesses from cyber threats, and safeguarding economic growth – an area where the EU appears to be highly vulnerable, with the economic impact of cybercrime estimated at 0.84% of GDP, compared to 0.78% in North America.
Cybersecurity skills in dangerously short supply
However, the EESC stresses that there is a critical shortage of cybersecurity skills in Europe and that the strategy will not be sufficient to meet it. Demand for cybersecurity professionals has been growing in recent years and has been skyrocketing with the pandemic. As organisations quickly shifted their operations online and 40% of EU workers switched to remote working in 2020, an estimated 40% of EU users experienced security-related issues in 2020, with over 12% of businesses affected by cyberattacks. Continue reading “New EU cybersecurity strategy is step forward”