The EU has been pushing the concept of the "European Cyber Shield" within the Digital Europe Programme as well as with the proposed "Cyber Solidarity Act".

After a presentation on this topic at the CSIRTs Network meeting in June, I've written a long-form paper to lay out my thinking on this topic.

Executive Summary

• The proposed Cyber Shield (Chapter 2 Cyber Solidarity Act) contains valid ideas: supporting SOCs by fostering national and cross-border collaboration is worth doing.
• An unfortunate choice of terminology is prone to confuse readers of the Act. A change would be welcomed.
• The relationship between the proposed structures and the tasks of the CSIRTs and the CSIRTs network (as stipulated in the NIS2 Directive) is not entirely clear. Defining this relationship and integrating the proposed roles with the existing structures would be useful.
• EU funding for multiple consortia with the aim of building closer, technical collaborations in cross-border structures is a sound investment.

The full paper is available here or from our Download/Papers page.