The European Commission today issued a report that calls for greater education on IT security, and the creation of a common framework for collecting incident data.

In its report, the EC states that European spending on IT security "represents only around 5 to 13 percent of IT expenditure, which is alarmingly low." The commission calls for a cross-border effort to educate users about security and to unify disjointed national efforts to track exploits.

The report calls for the EC's European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) "to study the feasibility of a European information sharing and alert system to facilitate effective responses to existing and emerging threats to electronic networks." Such a system would require the creation of a multilingual EU portal to provide detailed information on threats, risks, and alerts, the commission said.

The EC also proposes to benchmark security-related policies and practices among its member nations, "to help identify the most effective practices so they can be deployed wherever possible on a broader basis throughout the EU." The commission also proposed a cross-border effort to educate users on security practices.

Another proposal calls for businesses, users and government agencies to hold a "multi-stakeholder debate" on the balance between security and privacy, including the implications of RFID technology on end user privacy. The commission plans to hold a business "event" to stimulate the development of "a culture of security in industry."

"The nature of the threat is changing, and so must our response," said Viviane Reding, the EC's Information Society and Media Commissioner, in a statement. "In the past, hackers were motivated by a desire to show off. Today, many threats come from criminal activities and are motivated by profit. What we need is a renewed strategy."

The EC is scheduled to make a report to the European Union Council and Parliament in the middle of next year to gauge its progress on the proposed activities.

— Tim Wilson, Site Editor, Dark Reading

Organizations mentioned in this story