05 Jun Introduction to the Cybersecurity Series

In this series, thanks to our experts, we will report and evaluate the latest developments in Cybersecurity from a European point of view. View part one (Eperi), part two (ECA) and part three (Systancia).

Publishing introduction

By Dominque Tessier, head of the focus group CYBERSECURITY

Before all, let me refer to the exceptional conditions that we have lived during weeks and that still last for a part. We have undergone the anxiety of possible bad news from friends, we have experienced lockdown, we have all be forced to shift to remote working to an extent that we had never known so far. I want to take this occasion to express my solidarity feelings with all those who have been hurt, who have been sick themselves or are acquainted to persons that have suffered from this disease.

I also think of all our start up’s and young European tech companies that have fought the difficulties, with markets shrinking and finances being short. However, in the Cybersecurity area, as it has soon become clear that malware makers and hackers had not retired, to say the least, many companies are in fact expecting growth of the market

This first issue of our Cybersecurity Newsletter will focus on a theme that has been often commented during this crisis: how do individuals and companies ensure that their data remain theirs, and are not exposed to ill-intentioned eyes? At state level, what about data sovereignty?

This theme has seen the birth of many Cybersecurity enterprises these last years. Most of them are less than 10 years old. New companies emerge every year. Now that it’s well known that “peripheral protection”, with all due respect, does not ensure 0% data compromising, this domain is fostering.

At state level, the same happens. While the EU has issued the GDPR regulation, other initiatives such as the Cloud Act have surged, that include threats on European sovereignty. And the Coronavirus crisis has shown no signs that a sense of fair cooperation would prevail.

Many in Europe share these objectives: we must stick to privacy rules, we must protect our data, we must maintain data sovereignty. Hence the question is: how?

To start giving answers, we are happy to have gathered the ideas of two great companies and future European Champions the German EPERI and the French SYSTANCIA. The diversity of their views reflect the fact that there is probably not a single way to tackle data protection issues, but a bunch of complementary solutions, such as: managing the infrastructure where data are stored and processes and making sure they remain “at the hand” of the users, encrypting the key data before they are stored and wherever this is done, making sure that only the appropriate persons have access to these key data, but also, as leakage will anyway remain a serious concern, detecting and stopping such leakages before they publicly pop up and become a real nuisance … It seems that the European Cybersecurity industry comprises a bunch of companies where each of them is a key player on a part of the field: could a next step be their evolution towards an ecosystem, able to address all the aspects of data protection and sovereignty?

The question is still open. But it is precisely this sort of questions that the European industry has to address to build leadership!

I wish you a fruitful reading. And please comment, nothing can be more useful than your own views.

Dominique Tessier

Head of ECA Cybersecurity Focus group