Romania’s cyber security: A national strategy, in public debate / A national call center for IT incidents might launch on June 20 

​The governmental decision on setting and implementing the National Center for IT incidents has been adopted in Romania and currently authorities are making efforts to operationalize this unit, Romanian Communications minister Valerian Vreme declared on Friday at Brussels. Contacted by HotNews.ro, Vreme said that the official launch of this center will be on June 20. The legislative act obtained by HotNews.ro reveals that the center will have 41 people and will manage an alert system and an information system in real time on IT incidents. Without making an explicit announcement, the minister launched a public debate on the institution’s website and the project regarding the setting up of a national strategy on IT security of the country.

All EU countries should have such centers by June 1, 2012. The national call center for IT incidents is currently a simple department in the National Institute of IT Research and the announcement that authorities are preparing a legal framework for its implementation was made by the Communications minister in April 2011 at a conference in Hungary.

Present at the same vent, EC Commissioner for Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes said that all EU member states should have such a call center for IT incidents as of June 1, 2012. Finally, we need to interconnect all these centers and develop a EU call center for IT incidents, the EU official said.

The center will have to defend the IT systems of the state and will have initially just 20 employees and will be headed by Victor Vevera. Last Friday, Romanian Communication Minister announced at Brussels that the government adopted a governmental decision on the creation of a center.

Contacted by HotNews.ro, he said the center is under the rule of the Communications ministry and that it will be launched on June 20, 2011. The center will have preventive public services like: announcements related to events in the sector, about new threats identified nationally or internationally, security evaluations at request, estimations of vulnerabilities and up to date situations regarding attempts to penetrate the system, disseminating information on cyber security.

The reactive public services include: alerts and warnings regarding some activities previously made before any attacks; managing incidents at the national level, disseminating information related to incidents of cyber security in compliance with the cooperation agreements signed with other partners.

Without making a public announcement, the Communications ministry posted the national strategy on cyber security, a document that was posted for public debate on May 27, 2011. The main actions are the creation of a national cyber security system that aims to secure the national component of the cyber space.