During the war in Ukraine, the cyber threat situation has intensified. According to the BSI, ransomware is becoming the biggest IT security threat. Sophos, Microsoft and Rhode & Schwarz have joined forces to form the Ransomware Initiative under the umbrella of eco and recommend 10 technical and organisational precautions.

The European Court of Justice today ruled that the German regulations on blanket data retention are not compatible with EU law. The eco Association welcomes this judgement and calls for an urgent repeal of the current regulations.

The European Commission has presented the proposal for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) regulation. Prof. Norbert Pohlmann, eco Board Member for IT Security, believes it is understandable that the EU wants to make digital systems even more secure and resilient in the future. However, he does not see an automatic improvement in security in the planned rules.

Employees are the most important link in the security chain in the fight against cybercrime, says Marcus Beyer from Swisscom. He presents the contents of his talk at the Internet Security Days (ISD) presentation in a short interview. The eco Association invites you to attend this IT security conference on 29-30 September 2022 at Phantasialand Brühl, Germany.

“For a sustainable mobility transition, a mobility ecosystem is needed that enables the sovereign and secure exchange of data among all actors involved, emphasises Oliver Süme, Chair of the Board of the eco Association.

Orchestrating value networks to realise new business models and produce more sustainably is exactly what the Gaia-X-Federation Services project (GXFS) is realising as the nucleus of software for Gaia-X. Klaus Ottradovetz from Atos, Ernst Stöckl-Pukall from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, and Harald A. Summa from the eco Association discussed why Europe needs Gaia-X at the GXFS Connect in Berlin.

In the legal dispute between SpaceNet AG and the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) will decide on 20 September whether the German regulations on data retention are compatible with EU law. eco has supported the lawsuit of SpaceNet AG from the beginning. According to the Association’s assessment, the general and unconditional storage of traffic data, with around 2.35 billion data records per day (IP addresses and telephony), affects almost all German users and costs the industry more than 600 million Euros.

On October 6, 2022, at 10:30 AM EDT, key individuals in government, industry, and academia will convene at American University in Washington, D.C., to discuss the legal frameworks that could make or break the Internet economy on both sides of the Atlantic.

On the occasion of the State of the European Union speech by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, expected on Wednesday, 14 September, eco Chair Oliver Süme said: "We live in challenging times. The threat of climate change and the current energy crisis as a result of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine show us that we must strive harder than ever for a more resource- and energy-efficient way of living and doing business. At the same time, digital resilience and technological sovereignty are becoming more important than ever."