The stock taking was performed through targeted interviews of small groups of identified stakeholders in each Member State. The questionnaire was a result of extensive consultation with Member States’ relevant stakeholders including a dedicated workshop in Brussels on 16th of June.
The questionnaire was organised in three main sections, namely:
- Scope and Governance: questions related to mandate, roles of authorities, existing
policy and regulatory provisions including voluntary ones,
- Tasks: questions related to tasks of authorities, exchange of information between authorities and providers, reporting of incidents,
- Risk management and Preparedness measures: questions related to national risk management process, incident response capabilities, response and preparedness measures and best practices.
The results of the stock taking were validated by relevant stakeholders during a dedicated workshop in Brussels in November 2008. Stakeholders commented the findings of the stock taking and analysis expressed their opinion on areas requiring additional analysis by ENISA and suggested topics for good practice development.
The stock taking report presents the policies and regulations of 23 Member States and 2 EFTA countries that finally took part in the exercise.
Member States deploy a variety of policies, regulations and strategies to facilitate, support and strengthen dependability and resilience of public e-communication networks.
Some key findings of the report are:
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Develop a national strategy, a solid policy and/or regulatory environment and
concrete preparedness measures;
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Define clear roles and responsibilities of involved public agencies; encourage intra- agency collaboration and information sharing,
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Encourage voluntary collaboration between public and private stakeholders and support the development of commonly agreed best practices and guidelines by capitalising on the know-how of experts from both industry and public authorities,
- Focus on how well things are working in practice and foster continuous learning by developing the appropriate mechanisms (e.g. exercises, audits, onsite visits),
- React promptly on reported incidents and analyse them within a trusted group of experts from public and private stakeholders,
- Achieving better dependability and resilience of public e-communication networks is a journey not a destination, hence having started yesterday taking many small but frequent steps is more effective than failing to shore up resources now.
The findings of the report will be the basis for further analysis and discussion among relevant Member States authorities.