HERAKLION, Greece and BRUSSELS, May 28 /PRNewswire/ --     The European Network and Information Security Agency [ENISA] launches two
reports with three recommendations on emerging new technologies and their
potential to improve the resilience of communication networks. Technologies
have been developed with properties that improve both the resilience and
security of the Internet. Experience is missing in the area of commercial
operation of these features, as well as operational best practices and
recommendations in applied network resilience.

Resilience and security of communication networks and services that they
support is an issue of critical importance to the EU economy and its
citizens, as it impacts day-to-day operation of businesses, affecting daily
lives of EU citizens.

ENISA carried out an assessment of three key technologies Multi Protocol
Label Switching (MPLS), Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) and Domain Name
System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) regarding their potential to provide
increased network resilience. This analysis was carried out from two
perspectives. The first consisted of analysing the characteristics of the
selected technologies and their public communication network's resilience
enhancing features. In parallel, the effectiveness of these technologies, as
well as problems and gaps that potentially could compromise the availability
of networks and services was assessed through interviews of twelve network
operators in the EU Member States.

The key findings of the analysis are:
    - The assessed technologies can improve both the resilience and security
      of the Internet.
    - Commercial operation experience is missing for some of the
      technologies.
    - There are neither operational best practices nor recommendations for
      applied network resilience.
    - There is lack of management and coordination between stakeholders.



Mr. Andrea Pirotti, Executive Director of ENISA comments:

"The recent spotlight in the news on networks unavailability, caused by
cyber attacks and physical phenomena, highlights the urgency and the
importance of ENISA's work on improving the resilience of public
communications. This is an area vital for European e-government, e-business
and ultimately, the economy."

The three key recommendations are:
    - Resilient connectivity of European organisations must be ensured.
    - European expertise, best practice and operational experience must be
      exploited.
    - The existence of European trained experts should be ensured.



Background: ENISA's Multiannual Thematic Program has the objective to
improve the resilience of public eCommunications in Europe.

The full reports are available at:

http://www.enisa.europa.eu/doc/pdf/resilience_tech_report.pdf

http://www.enisa.europa.eu/sta/files/resilience_features.pdf

http://www.enisa.europa.eu/sta/