EU Considers the Future of the European Network and Information Security Agency

EU lawmakers are considering extending funding for the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) in response to cyber attacks on Estonia. However, the organization currently does not have the funding, remit or capability to act as an incident response organization:

"Euro-MPs believe Internet infrastructure security must be protected more effectively as the EU economy depends increasingly on a trouble-free Web.

"A lot of staff are simply pushing papers, making reports and not doing what we need them to do. It's something you might see in the Soviet Union. There is an increase in network security problems," said Reino Paasilinna, a Finnish socialist."

[Editor's Note: After this article was published, I received a clarification on the staffing issues at ENISA from Ulf Bergström, Press and Communications Officer at ENSIA:

‘This year ADM has 17 staff in total, of which 13 are TAs (stable since 2006) to service 66 planned staff members (TAs and contract agents, SNEs and stagiaires).

There’s nothing imbalanced at ENISA. ENISA is even better as some agencies with regard to this ratio. The minimum number of admin staff (that we have) sounds much larger when the overall size of the agency is low.

About his ratio there's nothing what we could more improve, as the financial regulation and the whole set of administrative rules sets a minimum number in order to guarantee sound financial management ("checks and balances").']

Euro-MPs back longer term for EU Web security body