EU security agency warns on European network resilience

Three technologies – domain name services security extensions (DNSSEC), internet protocol v6 (IPv6) and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) – were assessed by network experts at the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) on their ability to improve European e-government and e-commerce network infrastructures.

ENISA evaluated the technologies from two perspectives: first, related to the actual characteristics and network resilience-enhancing features of the systems; and second, addressing the effectiveness and security problems inherent in the technologies.

The key findings were:

• The assessed technologies can improve both the resilience and security of the internet, but;
• Commercial operation experience is missing for some of the technologies;
• There are neither operational best practices nor recommendations for applied network resilience;
• There is a lack of management and co-ordination between stakeholders.

“The recent spotlight on network unavailability, caused by cyber attacks and physical phenomena, highlights the urgency and the importance of ENISA’s work on improving the resilience of public communications, vital for European e-government and e-commerce," said ENISA executive director Andrea Pirotti.

ENISA made three recommendations related to its analysis.

"Resilient connectivity of European organisations must be ensured; European expertise, best practice and operational experience must be exploited; ... and the existence of European trained experts should be ensured," it said.

The research was carried out on the back of ENISA’s Multiannual Thematic Programme, the objective of which is improving European e-communications resilience.

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