ETSI, the leading ICT standards organization, has opened a new technical committee on Cybersecurity to address the growing demands for standards in this field.

Today the Internet has become a critical infrastructure for a population of digital natives who live fully connected lives. Companies transact vast volumes of business over the internet and much communication, public or private, has gone digital. The security of this infrastructure and the communications and business it carries is a concern for all organizations and citizens. As we have grown dependent on networked digital systems, the variety and quantity of cyber-threats has rapidly increased. Traditional IT security threats have expanded into new sources of threat such as social media, Cloud, new mobile devices or ‘bring your own device’ policies.

“Secure networks and services are essential for a strong European internal market, for the protection of citizens and their data, and to fully unlock the business potential of an internet of things, says Luis Jorge Romero, ETSI’s Director General. Our newly created technical committee aims to produce strong, interoperable, trustworthy and transparent standards for a secure digital market.”

As there are different methods governing secure transactions in the various EU Member States, it is not always easy to assess the respective risks and to make the right choices to ensure security. The Cybersecurity technical committee will work closely with relevant stakeholders within and outside ETSI to collect, identify and specify requirements and thus develop appropriate standards to increase the privacy and security of organizations and citizens across Europe.

The activities of TC CYBER include the development of standards in the following areas:
• Cybersecurity;
• Security of infrastructures, devices, services and protocols;
• Security advice, guidance and operational security requirements to users, manufacturers and network and infrastructure operators;
• Security tools and techniques to ensure security;
• Creation of security specifications and alignment with work done in other ETSI committees.

ETSI is already at the forefront of ICT security standardization. Security is an integral part of all communication systems standardized by ETSI. ETSI has standardized a method of Threat, Vulnerability and Risk Analysis for use by its technical committees, as well as a method of applying the Common Criteria. In addition the Security Algorithms Group of Experts develops security and encryption algorithms for use in ETSI standardized technologies, the Smart Card Platform committee develops standards used to secure mobile communications and networks using the SIM card, and an ETSI Industry Specification Group is establishing Information Security Indicators for use by industry.

The newly-created TC CYBER will act as the ETSI centre of expertise in Cybersecurity, in addition to the specific standardization tasks it will perform.
Over 100 ETSI member organizations from industry and academia have already expressed their interest to join this newly created technical committee. The first meeting of TC CYBER, which is open to all ETSI Members, will be held on 27-28 May 2014, at ETSI, Sophia-Antipolis, France.