Strategic Conversation with Juhan Lepassaar, Executive Director of the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and European Young Leader

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis brings into sharp focus the disproportional impact cyber-attacks have on non-state actors. Private companies and personal technology are being targeted and access to healthcare is threatened. Meanwhile, the debate on 5G cybersecurity rages on, as the EU and member state governments assess the security risks associated with Chinese technology. But governments can only do so much. Cyberspace is produced and controlled by private actors, and policy must walk the thin line of regulating and collaborating with Big Tech to formulate and implement such protections. The EU established its own agency for cybersecurity, ENISA, to advise on such matters, but this advice must also be translated into meaningful and coordinated policy initiatives to protect citizens and member states. It remains to be seen if this crisis will be the springboard for formulating stronger rights and protections of EU network infrastructure.

This Strategic Conversation with Juhan Lepassaar, Executive Director of the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), will look at the effects of COVID-19 on cybersecurity and will explore how to make our societies more resilient against cyberattacks.

This new Strategic Conversations series invites key policymakers to share their views on a range of important and strategically relevant issues through interviews with senior thinkers on the Friends of Europe team.

Follow the conversation online here or via our Facebook page.

Related content:

• Building cyber resilience: Aligning strategies and increasing cooperation
• To Huawei or not to Huawei – EU’s 5G future
• How can Europe avoid playing catch-up in the race for 5G?