Now with over 1,5 years of working-from-home experience, cybersecurity remains an important topic. Our dependency on digital infrastructure is greater than ever, and sharing information remains crucial. To help Europe become more cyber resilient, Information Sharing and Analysis Centres (ISACs) are gaining attention from companies in various European sectors. During a three hour conference, the Empowering EU-ISACs consortium gave an update on the development of EU-Wide sectoral ISACs.

The conference took place on October 26, 2021 - check out the conference's replay at the bottom of this page.

We welcomed an impressive 17 ISACs from 20 sectors and from over 24 countries into our yearly conference in 2021, with the total amount of registrations surpassing 150 participants.

"Cybersecurity is not compartmentalized: it is to be achieved through participation amongst partners" according to Fidel Santiago, policy officer at the European Commission, who kicked of the program. That participation, Fidel follows, "starts with building trust. It is a motto: trust is the core of ISACs". After recognizing the value that ISACs bring to Europe, the floor was given to Roeland de Koning, project lead at the Empowering EU ISACs consortium. He reflected on the growth of ISAC (now 12+ initiatives and counting) but warned that without follow-up actions, the momentum can be lost.

In the first roundtable, in which Roeland participated together with Rossen Naydenov (ENISA), Oliver Schwabe (ISAC4CITIES) and Yannick Herrebaut (EU-Maritime ISAC), the year of ISACs was reflected upon. Oliver mentioned that the ISAC4CITIES, which he is chairing, is in the process of being born and the Consortium acts as the midwives. For Yannick, who launched the EU-Maritime ISAC late last year, the ambition for 2022 is to grow in terms of partners and maturity with the help of the EU-ISACs programme.

The second roundtable was all about learning from international success. We invited Koji Nakao (ICT-ISAC Japan) and John Salomon (FS-ISAC) and learned from their paths towards maturitization. Although the FS-ISAC started as a US presidential decree, the current organisation hosts organisations from all over the world. In Japan, their first steps towards maturity was set when they got in close contact with ministries; being able to translate the insights from the partners into direct policy amendments. As both ISACs grew in maturity, so did their way of working. The Japanese ISAC for example is quick in decommissioning taskforces when there is no progress. For the FS-ISAC, their strong person-based trust relationships allow for quicker handling. An advise from John to all emerging ISACs about the basics of the organiation: "Start building a trust communtiy, start sharing, talk amongst each other and make sure you have a clear structure, clear expectations and clear rules and then grow will evolve naturally from there". 

Salomon and Nakao both underlined the importance of international knowledge sharing.

Concluding the session, Fidel Santiago applauded the participation and level of interaction in the session and looks forward to the growing population of ISAC members. He encouraged the audience to share the word [and we'll help you with this] and looks forward to the upcoming time in which we will witness the maturitization of our EU ISACs. 

For more information visit the LinkedIn page of the EU-ISACs consortium to stay tuned, involved, and discuss on ISAC related topics and needs.

Please check out the slides used by Fidel Santiago (European Commission) [here]
And by Koji Nakao (ICT-ISAC Japan) [here]

Let's build the community together! 

We hope to see you during our next thematic workshop!