IT-Security in Austria needs reinforcement
With the increasing dependence on information technologies in business, administration, and private live, IT security becomes an essential building block of digitization.
The European Regulation on electronic identity and trust services is in force since 2016 and binding for all EU Member States. The Secure Information technology Center – Austria (A-SIT) has completed its accreditation as the only Austrian conformity assessment body under this regulation in 2017, as well as has also completed the required procedures to certify signature products and notified these as a designated certification body to the European Commission. First such products of Austrian and of international providers already got certified. Thus, A-SIT supports businesses and public administration with independent assessment of the trustworthiness of IT products.
In order to support a sustainable development of the Austrian as well as the European economy “Information Security as a Quality Mark” that is not just promoted as such by developers, but that is also verified, gives a competitive locational advantage over cheapest suppliers.
As a national competence center on information security A-SIT sees aside a push of digitization initiatives further immense challenges like with internet of things, or significance of information security in schools or adult education.
In addition to the digitization initiatives that are utterly important for the location, A-SIT sees the need for stronger investment into information security. Similar to cars or streets that in the past did not just get faster and more efficient, but in particular considerably safer, digitization may not only focus on efficiency, but must consider security. This – as the example with cars and streets shows – does not only require attention of producers of technology, but also demands the state to set clear requirements and provide infrastructure. UK for instance decided in its Cyber-Security Strategy to invest two billion Euros into cyber security over the next five years. The IT Security Association Germany (TeleTrusT) in a notice „Bisherige Umsetzung in Deutschland unzureichend” calls upon political parties to include one billion Euros per year on increasing cyber security into the German government programme.
A-SIT supports such programmes, in particular the German TeleTrust intitiative that calls for closing of ranks between the state, the industry, and the users and suggests that Austria follows these examples as a core component of its digitization initiatives.
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Press Release A-SIT (de)
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