EUROFOCUS
cybersecurityeurope
It plays host to more cyber policy-making bodies than any other European state, but Belgium still faces infosecurity challenges.
THE CLUSTER OF CYBER SECURITY INDUSTRY BODIES HEADQUARTERED WITHIN ITS BORDERS – AND MOST SPECIFICALLY, its capital city, Brussels, make Belgium an epicentre of European cyber crime counteraction agencies. Influential agencies like ENISA, ECSO, the Cyber Security Coalition, and the European Organisation for Security, are each based in Brussels, alongside the country’s own state cyber security body, the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB); the Leuven Institute of Criminology is located nearby. As the de facto ‘capital’ of the European Union (EU), Brussels also hosts some of the highest profile targets for cyber attackers; they include the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. Belgium is proving to be the place where much pan-European cyber crime policy is debated into legislation, and the place where intelligence gathered by cyber security agencies in EU members states pooled and collated. It comes as somewhat of a surprise, then, that according to some recent comparative studies, Belgium has elsewhere a mixed record when it comes to cyber security readiness and best practice, and has been relatively slow to impose some of the legislative safeguards to ensure that its own economy – and citizens – are as well-protected against the ravages of cyber crimes as they could be. The EC reportedly even threatened to take the federal Government of Belgium (headed since 2014 by Prime Minister Charles FACTS
POLICY-DRIVEN APPROACH TO NATIONAL CYBER SECURITY Belgium adopted its first national cyber security strategy in 2013. It defines three strategic objectives across eight action domains. The three objectives are: to ensure a safe and reliable cyberspace; to provide optimal security and
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protection for critical infrastructures and for governmental information systems; to enable the development of national cyber security capabilities.
