TESTA facilitates sharing of cyber threat-related information and incident response for EU institutions, bodies, and agencies

In the context of the coronavirus outbreak, the CERT for the EU institutions, bodies and agencies (CERT-EU) has taken all necessary measures to assess and monitor possible cyber aspects of the coronavirus pandemic. The team established a plan to address any potential threat that may affect the cybersecurity and interests of these EU entities. 



CERT-EU relies on TESTA, a data communication network service supported by ISA², to facilitate the exchange of cyber threat related information, log management and correlation using a multi-tier index for searching into past events or for detecting events in real-time using rules applied to log files from multiple sources.



Thanks to TESTA, remote searching, monitoring, alerting and license sharing is possible. TESTA is the backbone of the European common communication infrastructure for data exchange between a wide variety of public administrations. It provides guaranteed performance and a high level of security and interoperability. The network is used by EU institutions and agencies, as well as Member States and organisations acting on their behalf.



CERT-EU is composed of over 35 security experts and its mission is to enhance the security of the information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure of all EU institutions, bodies and agencies. It supports incident prevention, detection, mitigation and response by acting as the cyber-security information exchange and incident response coordination hub for its constituents.



CERT-EU cooperates with other national/governmental CERTs or CSIRTs in the Members States, partners like NATO and with specialised IT security companies in order to respond to information security incidents and cyber threats.



Recently the European Commission, ENISA, CERT-EU and Europol - all making use of TESTA - issued a COVID-19 Joint Statement to continue to monitor the situation and coordinate as appropriate to ensure a safer cyberspace for the EU and the world. 



More info on CERT-EU services can be found here.