20.1.2023
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 20/9
CHAPTER III: ENHANCED RESPONSE
Actions at Member State level (25) Member States are invited to: (a) continue coordination of their response, where relevant, and maintain the overview of the cross-sectoral response to acute disruptions of essential services provided by critical infrastructure.
This could be done in the framework of: a future Blueprint on a coordinated response to disruptions of critical infrastructure with significant crossborder relevance; the existing Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) arrangements for the coordination of the political response when it comes to critical infrastructure with cross-border relevance; the Blueprint on largescale cybersecurity incidents and crises under Commission Recommendation (EU) 2017/1584 (11); EU-CyCLONe; in the Framework for a coordinated EU response to hybrid campaigns and the EU Hybrid Toolbox in the case of hybrid threats and campaigns; and in the Rapid Alert System in the case of disinformation; (b) increase operational-level information exchange with the ERCC within the context of the UCPM in order to enhance early warning and to coordinate their response under the UCPM in the event of disruptions of critical infrastructure with significant cross-border relevance, thus ensuring a faster Union-facilitated reaction when needed; (c) increase their readiness to respond, where relevant, via existing or to-be-developed tools to such significant disruptions referred to in point (a); (d) engage in further developing relevant response capacities in the European Civil Protection Pool (ECPP) and rescEU; (e) encourage critical infrastructure operators and relevant national authorities to enhance their capacities to be able to quickly restore a basic performance of the essential services provided by those critical infrastructure operators; (f) encourage critical infrastructure operators, when rebuilding their critical infrastructure, to build it to be as resilient as possible, taking into account the proportionality of measures with regard to risk assessments and costs, to the full range of significant risks that may apply to it, including in adverse climate scenarios.
(26) Member States are invited to accelerate preparatory work, where possible, as mandated by the reinforced legal framework on cybersecurity, by aiming to enhance the national CSIRTs capabilities, in view of the new tasks of CSIRTs as well as the enlarged number of entities from new sectors, reviewing and updating their cybersecurity strategies in a timely manner and adopting as soon as possible national cybersecurity incident and crisis response plans, if not yet existing.
(27) Member States are invited to consider, at national level, the most relevant means to ensure that relevant stakeholders are aware of the need to advance the resilience of critical infrastructure by cooperation with trusted vendors and partners.
It is important to invest in additional capacity, especially in the sectors where the current infrastructure is at the end of its lifespan, for example undersea communications cable infrastructure, to be able to ensure continuity of the provision of essential services in the event of disruptions, and to reduce unwanted dependencies.
(28) Member States are encouraged to pay attention to proactive strategic communication at national level in the context of countering hybrid threats and campaigns, and given the potential that adversaries may seek to engage in foreign information manipulation and interference by shaping the narratives around incidents targeting critical infrastructure.
Actions at Union level
(29) The Commission is invited to work closely with the Member States to further develop relevant bodies, instruments and response capacities, with a view to enhancing operational preparedness to address the immediate and indirect effects of significant disruptions of relevant essential services provided by critical infrastructure, in particular experts and resources available through the ECPP and rescEU under the UCPM or future Hybrid Rapid Response Teams.
(11) Commission Recommendation (EU) 2017/1584 of 13 September 2017 on coordinated response to large-scale cybersecurity incidents and crises (OJ L 239, 19.9.2017, p. 36).