EU Agency ENISA has issued the final report and video clip on on the first Pan-European cyber security exercise for public bodies, ‘Cyber Europe 2010’. The report stressed the need for more cyber security exercises in the future, a increased collaboration between the Member States and the importance of the private sector in ensuring security.

'Cyber Europe 2010' was conducted on the 4th of November 2010 and the main objective was to trigger communication and collaboration between countries to respond to large-scale cyber-attacks. More than 300 simulated hacking attacks aimed at paralysing the Internet and critical online services across Europe and over 70 experts from the participating public bodies worked together in order to counter them. During the exercise, a simulated loss of Internet connectivity between the countries took place, requiring cross border cooperation to avoid a (simulated) total network crash.

The main recommendations collected in the report following the exercise done in November include that:

• Europe should continue to hold exercises in Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP): 86% of the participants found the ‘dry run’ ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ useful.
• The private sector should provide value in future exercises by increasing levels of realism
• ‘Lessons Identified’ should be exchanged with those holding other (national or international) exercises
• Member States should be well organised internally, for example, by developing and testing national contingency plans and exercises.
• A roadmap for pan-EU exercises should be created. This would include  a definition of standard procedures and structures for large scale events.

Supporting EU-wide cyber security preparedness exercises is an EU priority in  its ‘Digital Agenda for Europe’, as to ensure that businesses and citizens are secure online.  The EU Agency ENISA also released an online video clip to support the report.