The number of technology-based devices that connect to the Internet is very high, with an average of 125 per second, globally, and increasingly more of them are in the energy sector, Dan Cimpean, director of the National Directorate of Cyber Security (DNSC) said on Thursday at a signing conference of a strategic cooperation agreement for resilience against cyber-attacks .

'To us, as a directorate, the energy sector, with its entire ecosystem of solution providers, services, in particular, on everything that means technology, on everything that means cybersecurity, is an absolutely fundamental ecosystem. We all know that without energy everything has shut down, there is no social activity, there is no economic activity. So, it is phenomenally vulnerable as a company, as a sister, as an organisation, as an individual. Now, from us, from the directorate, we observe some macroeconomic trends in the areas of cybersecurity that are very, very worrying, and I choose my words very carefully. Since the hybrid war we have on the border, we have noticed a constant, not exponential, and sustained increase in the number of attacks, in their complexity. (...) There are many factors, along with technological development. On the other hand, we are talking about the large number of technologies, technology-based devices, operational that connect to the Internet. I say, I think we have an average of 125 such connections per second, globally, and increasingly more of them are in the energy area,' said Cimpean.

In the view of the DNSC official, multiple technologies and numerous suppliers create an ever-increasing attack surface and, therefore, require highly specialised knowledge from engineers, automation engineers, energy specialists and IT specialists.

'There is, on the one hand, an increasingly sophisticated, increasingly complicated technical infrastructure, and on the other hand, state and non-state attacks that are growing steadily and systematically. Obviously, when a negative impact on a state is desired, they start a systematic attack on the energy, transport, health, financial, banking infrastructure, etc. The good thing is that we also see solutions (...) I am not a specialist in the sector as such, but we at the directorate want to identify, validate and recognise such solutions that we believe are useful and valuable. In the European Union, what is happening in the cyber field, you know as well as I do, a lot of things converge. Borders are no longer relevant, because everything is just a click away, the solutions are just a click away, and the geographical location no longer matters,' said Cimpean.

DNSC and the Romanian company Enevo Group on Thursday held the signing event of a strategic cooperation agreement, aimed at increasing the cyber resilience of critical infrastructures in Romania's energy.

SentryOT, a platform developed within the Enevo group by a Romanian team specialised in OT cybersecurity and energy engineering, offers the highest level of resistance to cyber-attacks on industrial control systems (OT).

The agreement between DNSC and Enevo Group supports Romania's alignment with the new European cybersecurity requirements, in particular the NIS2 Directive, capitalises on local technological expertise to ensure the protection of operational systems, contributes to the growth of Romania and the European Union's (EU) digital sovereignty by promoting high-performance local solutions. The agreement is said to have a national and European strategic value, offering a concrete model of collaboration between the public and the private sectors designed to support business operators achieving the highest security standards.

The cooperation between the two entities covers information exchange and threat intelligence for early identification and coordinated response to cyberattacks; testing and implementing advanced monitoring and alerting technologies, such as the Romanian SentryOT platform, dedicated to protecting industrial infrastructures; initiating joint research and development for OT security software; providing training and awareness sessions for critical infrastructure personnel; participation in the development of public policies, both at national and European level, in the area of industrial security. AGERPRES (RO - editing by: Daniel Badea; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)