Categories: Cybersecurity Europe

EU takes major step forward on government vulnerability disclosure review processes

We’ve argued for many years that governments should implement transparent processes to review and disclose the software vulnerabilities that they learn about. Such processes are essential for the cybersecurity of citizens, businesses, and governments themselves. For that reason, we’re delighted to report that the EU has taken a crucial step forward in that endeavour, by giving its cybersecurity agency an explicit new mandate to help European governments establish and implement these processes where requested.

The just-adopted EU Cybersecurity Act is designed to increase the overall level of cybersecurity across the EU, and a key element of the approach focuses on empowering the EU’s cybersecurity agency (‘ENISA’) to play a more proactive role in supporting the Union’s Member States in cybersecurity policy and practices. Since the legislative proposal was launched in 2017, we’ve argued that ENISA should be given the power to support EU Member States in the area of government vulnerability disclosure (GVD) review processes.

Malicious actors can exploit vulnerabilities to cause significant harm to individuals and businesses, and can cripple critical infrastructure. At the same time, governments often learn about software vulnerabilities and face competing incentives as to whether to disclose the existence of the vulnerability to the affected company immediately, or delay disclosure so they can use the vulnerability as an offensive/intelligence-gathering tool. For those reasons, it’s essential that governments have processes in place for reviewing and coordinating the disclosure of the software vulnerabilities that they learn about, as a key pillar in their strategy to defend against the nearly daily barrage of cybersecurity attacks, hacks, and breaches.

For several years, we’ve been at the forefront of calls for governments to put in place these processes. In the United States, we spoke out strongly in favor of the Protecting Our Ability to Counter Hacking Act (PATCH Act) and participated in the Centre for European Policy Studies’ Task Force on Software Vulnerability Disclosure, a broad stakeholder taskforce that in 2018 recommended EU and national-level policymakers to implement GVD review processes. In that context, our work on the EU Cybersecurity Act is a necessary and important continuation of this commitment.

We’re excited to see continued progress on this important issue of cybersecurity policy. The adoption of the Cybersecurity Act by the European Parliament today ensures that, for the first time, the EU has given legal recognition to the importance of EU Member States putting in place processes to review and manage the disclosure of vulnerabilities that they learn about. In addition, by giving the EU Cybersecurity Agency the power to support Member States in developing and implementing these processes upon request, the EU will help ensure that Member States with weaker cybersecurity resilience are supported in implementing this ‘next generation’ of cybersecurity policy.

We applaud EU lawmakers for this forward-looking approach to cybersecurity, and are excited to continue working with policymakers within the 28 EU Member States to see this vision for government vulnerability disclosure review processes realised at national and EU level. This will help Europe and all Europeans to be more secure.

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