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The European Union on Tuesday unveiled a 1.1 billion-euro ($1.2 billion) plan to help prevent cross-border hacking attacks as the threat from Russia grows. Europe is trying to bolster its defenses online as Moscow's war against Ukraine has raised fears that Russian hackers are targeting critical infrastructure. Read here: UK regulator investigates Amazon's planned $1.7bn takeover of iRobot
The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said the "Cyber Shield" plan would seek to link the capabilities of designated "security operations centers" in member states.
He said the first centers could be operational by 2024 and would use artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics to track threats.
The goal of the plan, which has yet to be negotiated with EU states, is to help deal with a large-scale attack targeting multiple countries.
But EU states have been skeptical of giving Brussels too much power to deal with emerging threats in sensitive areas of their national infrastructure.
"Sometimes there was a reluctance between member states to share," said EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
"But the thing is, I think it's becoming increasingly clear that no one can solve this problem alone."
The initiative also provides for the formation of a "cybersecurity reserve" of private service providers that could step in to help a country targeted by a major attack.
The threat from Russia was demonstrated early in its invasion of Ukraine when the West said Moscow had carried out a cyberattack on a US satellite network.
Washington said the attack on the Viasat satellite operator was designed to disrupt Ukrainian command and control just as the Kremlin was sending in its tanks.
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European providers said the incident also knocked thousands of internet users in France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy and Poland offline.
