Cyber Situation Centre
The planned Cyber Situation Centre will
be responsible for tackling major cyber
incidents in the public administration
as well as for special crisis and disaster
situations at national level. The services of
the Austrian Federal Army (Österreichisches
Bundesheer/ÖBH) will round off the
activities of the Cyber Situation Centre.
In “normal operations”, the Cyber
Situation Centre prepares public and nonpublic analyses on network security in
Austria and is responsible for simulations
and reporting. Early warning is one major
task of the Cyber Situation Centre. The
capacity for forensic activities will be
created to support enterprises on request.
It is therefore necessary to monitor the
situation 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
(24/7) to ensure that clients, notably critical
infrastructures (also usually operating 24/7)
obtain the required information on time.
The networks of public administration
and critical infrastructures are equipped
with sensors in order to gather securityrelevant information in real time. Networks
without such sensor systems will be obliged
to report cyber anomalies (to be defined).
The legal framework will need to be
analysed and adapted as a first step. Legal
provisions have to be adopted defining
the responsibilities and powers of Cyber
Situation Centres, their reporting duties and
requirements concerning data disclosure.
Stakeholders playing similar roles
are to be involved in the organisation of
Cyber Situation Centres. Strategic and
organisational decisions must be taken
jointly by a Situation Council together with
the most important public cyber security
stakeholders. The involvement of private
stakeholders is highly recommended.
The main recipients of services
provided by Cyber Situation Centres are
various bodies of the public administration
and critical infrastructure enterprises.
Objective 2: Networking of stakeholders
and structures
Hypothesis: Cyber security is important
where ICT systems are connected to the
Internet—and this means practically
everywhere since connected digital devices
are used directly or indirectly in our
information society. Unfortunately such
digital omnipresence also provides a fertile
breeding ground for all kinds of criminal
wheeling and dealing. The establishment of
networks among all stakeholders and cyber
structures is essential in order to react fast
after the occurrence of harmful incidents,
or to disseminate the lessons learned after
overcoming harmful incidents. Only by
establishing a tightly knit network of
contacts between stakeholders will Austria
be able to benefit from robust cyber security
structures.
Strategic objective:
Incentives, support measures and a legal
basis must be created to promote densely
knit networks between Austrian cyber
security stakeholders and structures. The
aim is to establish an automated cyber
networking procedure so as to promote
a comprehensive and self-learning cyber
security culture in Austria based on
information-exchanging control loops.
Measures
Promoting existing and new networks
between stakeholders and structures in
Austria: Fostering networking between
stakeholders—within cyber activity areas
by means of focused expert meetings;
beyond the boundaries of activity areas
(sensitisation, education, research and
development, security prevention,
emergency and crisis management,
public information and criminal
prosecution) and across sectors (public
administration, economy, universities,
interest representations, citizens). Exchanges
between cyber security stakeholders with
representatives of sectors with only indirect
or no cyber security responsibility must be
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