EU Telecoms Suffered 169 Major Security Incidents in 2017

ENISA, EU’s agency for network and information security, has released a report on major telecom security incidents that occurred in the EU in 2017.
About the report

Electronic communication providers in the EU have to report significant security incidents to the national telecom regulatory authorities (NRAs) in 28 EU Member States, Norway and Switzerland.

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The providers are currently required to report incidents causing disruptions to fixed and mobile telephony, fixed and mobile Internet access, and other services, but will soon also be required to report other security breaches (e.g., confidentiality breaches).

Every year, the NRAs report summaries about the most significant incidents, based on a set of agreed thresholds. ENISA’s report gives an aggregated overview of these summaries.

Key findings

There have been 169 major telecom security incidents in 2017. Of these:

  • 62,1% were due to system failures (hardware failures, software bugs or faulty software updates).
  • 18,3% were caused by human errors
  • 17,2% were caused by natural phenomena
  • 2,4% were caused by malicious actions (e.g., DoS attack disrupting the service, cable theft).
A technician working on a network rack,managing multiple cables connected to networking equipment.
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Read more: Help Net Security

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