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text: Now known as the ‘ECASEC Expert Group’ 2 In addition to protection of consumers, the EECC actually promotes interest of EU citizens. For example, one of the objectives listed in the

text: Article 3

text: , paragraphs (d), is to “promote the interests of the citizens of the Union, by ensuring connectivity and the widespread availability and take-up of very high capacity networks, including fixed, mobile and wireless networks, and of electronic communications services”.

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text: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/58 6 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32009R1211&from=EN 7

text: Regulation (EU) No 526/2013

text: of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 concerning the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) and repealing

text: Regulation (EC) No 460/2004

text: (OJ L 165, 18.6.2013, p. 41).

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text: Directive (EU) 2016/1148

text: of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 concerning measures for a high common level of security of network and information systems across the Union (OJ L 194, 19.7.2016, p. 1). 9 Availability is typically defined as a property of being accessible and usable on demand by an authorized entity (ISO/IEC 27000:2018) 10 Authenticity is typically defined as a property that an entity is what it claims to be (ISO/IEC 27000:2018) 11 Integrity is typically defined as a property of accuracy and completeness (ISO/IEC 27000:2018) 12 Confidentiality is typically defined as a property that information is not made available or disclosed to unauthorized individuals, entities, or processes (ISO/IEC 27000:2018) 13 Previous versions of this guideline used the abbreviation NRA, National Regulatory Authority.

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text: For example, in the case of dark fibre providers certain security measures may not be applicable because these providers do not directly deal with subscribers and do not have much staff. A widely used generic definition of an asset is “something that has value”. We provide more details about assets in sections 4.1.1 and 4.1.2.

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text: These criteria are in line with the criteria used in the EU Coordinated risk assessment of the cybersecurity of 5G networks. Further guidance related to critical asset identification pertaining to 5G networks specifically is provided in the supplement of this document - security profile for 5G MNOs. 17 Therefore, in this document, the term ‘third parties’ does not refer to customers, the public, or government or regulatory authorities. 18 In information security governance literature these are also sometimes referred to as ‘control objectives’.

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text: This should include demonstrating quality levels of information security processes, security maintenance of products and equipment throughout its lifetime and security built into the product development processes.

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text: Background checks should be appropriate and proportionate to the risk assessed, in particular when they apply to personnel other than providers’ own employees, e.g. for contractors and third-party users.

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text: Including third party assets, where applicable. 22 Security controls should be selected based on the risk assessment, which should also take in consideration current and forecasted environmental security risks – e.g. related to climate change. 23 For example, physical access to such assets should only be granted to a limited number of security-vetted, trained and qualified personnel. Access by third-parties, contractors, and employees of suppliers/vendors, integrators, should be limited and monitored.

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text: Only examples are given, the list is not exhaustive. Critical supplies could be any other supplies that essential for providers to provide the service.

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text: Including reliable identification, monitoring and tracking of changes and the status of patches. 26 The type and scope of data to be encrypted should be determined based on the risk assessment performed and will typically include communication data, customer critical data (e.g. unique identifiers), relevant management and signalling traffic and any other data or metadata, the disclosure or tampering of which may cause security incidents. 27 Ability to implement encryption may also be influenced by technological limitations, like in the case of legacy networks or when old equipment and network protocols are used.

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text: E.g. hashing using appropriate hashing algorithms, salting etc.

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text: For the definition of ‘incident’ used in this document, see Section 2.

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text: Measures to detect incidents described under this security objective should be understood in a broader sense as to be able to also detect serious events that may lead to incidents 31 Where justified on the basis of the actual assessment of the security risks involved, operators should run their NOC and/or SOC on premise, inside the country and/or inside the EU.

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text: For example, Article 40 of the EECC, which is being transposed by all EU member states to national legislation, included requirement to report to a competent authority security incident that has had a significant impact on the operation of networks or services.

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text: When determining dependent critical sectors and services, providers may take into account those services that are dependent on the continuity of the network and service operation which are essential for the maintenance of critical societal and/or economic activities and for which an incident would have significant disruptive effects on the provision of that service. One possible way for identifying such dependent services may be to pass the obligation to service consumers to inform the providers if their service is considered critical.

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text: Not all of the listed evidence may be applicable in scenarios with large geographically extended national telco networks, for assets offering direct connectivity to end users.

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text: Testing in this context refers primarily to testing of security related functionality, rather than to general-purpose ICT functionality testing

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text: Information sources should be relevant, current and credible and may include known threat intelligence reports, such as ENISA Threat Landscape (https://www.enisa.europa.eu/topics/threat-risk-management/threats-and-trends/enisa-threatlandscape) or various other threat reports by commercial entities, industry associations or academia.

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text: This list is based on input from a survey, asking competent authorities across the EU, which are the activities they are deploying or planning to deploy.

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text: Security Supervision under the EECC, ENISA, January 2020, https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/supporting-theimplementation-of-the-european-electronic-commmunications-code-eecc/

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text: This may also include a more detailed scope statement (or a Statement of Applicability for ISO 27001). 40 In most countries, for example, there are organizations that license auditors to carry out IT audits.

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text: Except for the mapping of ISO 27001:2013 sections to SO2. 42 See also ISO 27005 43 See also ISO 27036-3:2013 - Guidelines for ICT supply chain security

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text: In addition, ISO 22301 covers Business Continuity Management 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid.

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identifier: Guideline on Security Measures under the EECC

title: Guideline on Security Measures under the EECC

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC th 4 Edition

text: JULY 2021 GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC

text: ABOUT ENISA

text: The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, ENISA, is the Union’s agency dedicated to achieving a high common level of cybersecurity across Europe. Established in 2004 and strengthened by the EU Cybersecurity Act, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity contributes to EU cyber policy, enhances the trustworthiness of ICT products, services and processes with cybersecurity certification schemes, cooperates with Member States and EU bodies, and helps Europe prepare for the cyber challenges of tomorrow. Through knowledge sharing, capacity building and awareness raising, the Agency works together with its key stakeholders to strengthen trust in the connected economy, to boost resilience of the Union’s infrastructure, and, ultimately, to keep Europe’s society and citizens digitally secure.. More information about ENISA and its work can be found at www.enisa.europa.eu.

text: CONTACT

text: For contacting the authors please use resilience@enisa.europa.eu For media enquiries about this paper, please use press@enisa.europa.eu.

text: AUTHORS

text: Goran Milenkovic, Dr. Marnix Dekker, European Union Agency for Cybersecurity.

text: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

text: For the completion of this guideline ENISA has worked closely with a working group of experts from national authorities, the ECASEC Expert Group (formerly known as the Article 13a Expert Group). We are grateful for their valuable input, comments and support in the process of developing of this document.

text: National authorities also organized a review of this document by providers in their countries. We are grateful for the many useful comments and suggestions we received from experts in the sector.

text: LEGAL NOTICE

text: Notice must be taken that this publication represents the views and interpretations of ENISA, unless stated otherwise. This publication should not be construed to be a legal action of ENISA or the ENISA bodies unless adopted pursuant to the

text: Regulation (EU) No 2019/881

text: . This publication does not necessarily represent state-of the-art and ENISA may update it from time to time. Third-party sources are quoted as appropriate. ENISA is not responsible for the content of the external sources including external websites referenced in this publication.

text: This publication is intended for information purposes only. It must be accessible free of charge. Neither ENISA nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for the use that might be made of the information contained in this publication.

text: COPYRIGHT NOTICE

text: © European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), 2021 Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged.

text: For any use or reproduction of photos or other material that is not under the ENISA copyright, permission must be sought directly from the copyright holders.

text: ISBN: 978-92-9204-457-2 - DOI: 10.2824/44013

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC

text: TABLE OF CONTENTS

text: 1. INTRODUCTION 7

text: 1.1 TARGET AUDIENCE 7

text: 1.2 GOAL 7

text: 1.3 VERSIONS AND CHANGES 7

text: 2. BACKGROUND 9

text: 2.1 EU POLICY CONTEXT 9

text: 2.2 ENISA’S ROLE 9

text: 3. EECC DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY 10

text: 3.1 EECC DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY 10

text: 3.1.1 EECC: Articles

text: and

text: and relevant recitals 10

text: 3.2 TERMINOLOGY 13

text: 3.2.1 Security of networks and services 13 3.2.2 Security incidents 13 3.2.3 Competent authorities 13 3.2.4 Security measures 13 3.2.5 NI-ICS 13

text: 4. SECURITY MEASURES 14

text: 4.1 ASSETS IN SCOPE AND RISK ASSESSMENT 14

text: 4.1.1 Primary and secondary assets 14

text: 4.2 CRITICAL ASSETS 15

text: 4.2.1 Personnel and key personnel 15 4.2.2 Third parties and outsourcing 15

text: 4.3 STRUCTURE OF THE SECURITY MEASURES 15

text: 4.4 SECURITY OBJECTIVES AND SECURITY MEASURES 17

text: 4.4.1 D1: Governance and risk management 19 4.4.2 D2: Human resources security 22 4.4.3 D3: Security of systems and facilities 24 4.4.4 D4: Operations management 29 4.4.5 D5: Incident management 31 4.4.6 D6: Business continuity management 34

text: 4.4.7 D7: Monitoring, auditing and testing 36 4.4.8 D8: Threat awareness 40

text: 5. TECHNICAL SUPERVISION OF SECURITY MEASURES 42

text: 5.1 MANDATING OR RECOMMENDING A SECURITY STANDARD 42

text: 5.1.1 Mandating versus recommending a security standard 43 5.1.2 Using the ENISA guideline as a recommendation 43 5.1.3 Using the ENISA guideline as a mapping 43 5.1.4 Using existing national or international standards or best practices 44

text: 5.2 ASSESSING COMPLIANCE ACROSS THE MARKET 44

text: 5.3 SUPERVISION REGIME FOR NI-ICS PROVIDERS 46

text: 5.4 TECHNOLOGY PROFILES 46

text: 5.5 TAKING A STAGED APPROACH 47

text: 5.6 AUDITING PROVIDERS 49

text: 5.6.1 Assessment types 49 5.6.2 Auditor types 50 5.6.3 Audit timing and objectives 51

text: 5.7 AUTHORISATIONS CONDITIONS 51

text: 5.7.1 Authorisations 51 5.7.2 Conditions 51

text: 6 MAPPING TO INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS 53

text: 5.8 MAPPING SECURITY DOMAINS 53

text: 5.9 MAPPING SECURITY OBJECTIVES 55

text: 6. REFERENCES 57 GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC

text: PREFACE

text: The 2009 reform of the EU legislative framework for electronic communications introduced

text: Article 13

text: a and

text: Article 13

text: b as part of the Framework directive (Directive

text: ). This reform was transposed into national legislation by EU Member States in 2011.

text: Article 13

text: a requires MS to ensure that providers of electronic communications manage security risks and take appropriate security measures to guarantee the security (paragraph 1) and integrity (paragraph 2) of these networks and services.

text: Article 13

text: a (paragraph 3) requires providers to notify significant security incidents to competent national authorities, who should report about these incidents to ENISA and the European Commission (EC) annually.

text: Article 13

text: b outlines how authorities can supervise and enforce compliance with these security requirements.

text: In 2010, ENISA, the European Commission, and experts from ministries and telecom regulators in the EU Member States initiated a series of meetings to achieve an efficient and harmonised implementation of

text: Article 13

text: a across the EU, forming the

text: Article 13

text: a Expert Group . This group is now chaired by an expert from a national competent authority in the EU and comprises experts from competent authorities from all EU countries as well as from some EFTA and EU candidate countries. The

text: Article 13

text: a Expert Group reached consensus about two non-binding technical guidelines for implementing

text: Article 13

text: a: the “Technical Guideline on Incident Reporting” and the “Technical Guideline on Security Measures”.

text: In December 2018, a new set of telecom rules called the European Electronic Communications Code (abbreviated as EECC) was adopted. The EECC updates the EU telecom package of 2009 and paves the way for the roll out of fibre, very high capacity networks and next generation mobile networks (5G), which will create jobs and growth, enable new application scenarios like internet of things (IoT) and new business models. An important part of the EECC is consumer protection and security of electronic communications. EU countries have to transpose this EU directive into national law by 21 December 2020.

text: Article 40 of the EECC, which replaces the above-mentioned

text: Article 13

text: a, contains detailed security requirements for electronic communication providers. Article 41 of the EECC, which replaces

text: Article 13

text: b, outlines how competent authority can enforce these security requirements. Although the security requirements under the EECC are similar to the security requirements under the Framework directive, there are important differences. An overview of the main differences can be found in an ENISA policy paper about the EECC. As with

text: Article 13

text: a, ENISA will support the EU Member States with the implementation of Article 40 of the EECC, to ensure there is an effective, efficient, and harmonized approach to security supervision across the EU. To reflect this legislative change the

text: Article 13

text: a group has changed its name to ECASEC, European Competent Authorities for Secure Electronic Communications.

text: This document, the Guideline on Security Measures under the EECC, provides guidance to competent authorities about the technical details of implementing Articles 40 and 41 of the EECC: how to ensure that providers assess risks and take appropriate security measures.

text: The structure of this guideline is as follows: The guideline lists 29 high-level security objectives, which are grouped in 8 security domains. For each security objective we list specific detailed security measures which could be taken by providers to reach the security objective. These security measures are grouped in 3 levels of increasing sophistication. We also give examples of evidence, which could be taken into account by an auditor, for example, when assessing if these security measures are actually in place. The overall structure is depicted in the diagram below.

text: Figure 1: Overall structure of the security objectives and security measures

text: One size does not fit all: Neither the high-level security objectives nor the detailed security measures should be seen as binding recommendations about which are appropriate security measures for providers to take. The reason is that the electronic communications sector is very diverse; large incumbents, small service providers, black fibre operators, virtual mobile network operators, ISPs offering only DSL, etc. In each setting the risks are different and it is up to the providers to assess the risks and decide which are appropriate security measures to take. This document is intended as a tool for competent authorities supervising the sector. It could be used as a structure for self-assessments, audits and audit reports, guidance for providers, or as a mapping to international network and information security standards used in the electronic communications sector.

text: General security guideline supplemented by specific security profiles: The security measures in this guideline are technology-neutral. They should be applicable to a wide range of different types of technologies. As a supplement to this guideline we are developing more detailed guidance for specific networks and technology, such as 5G. This security guideline, together with the 5G supplement , addresses the relevant technical measures in the EU toolbox of risk mitigating measures for 5G networks.

text: Figure 2: Structure of the ENISA Guideline on Security Measures under the EECC

text: 1. INTRODUCTION

text: This document provides technical guidance to the national authorities tasked with supervising the security of electronic communication networks and services (hereinafter Competent Authorities), and in particular the security measures mentioned in

text: Article 40

text: the European Electronic Communications Code (hereinafter EECC).

text: 1.1 TARGET AUDIENCE

text: This guideline is for experts from competent authorities in the EU Member States tasked with the implementation of Article 40 of the EECC.

text: This guideline may be useful also for experts working in the EU’s electronic communications sector and experts working in cyber security.

text: 1.2 GOAL

text: This document aims to give guidance to competent authorities about the security measures described in Article 40 of the EECC and the enforcement described in Article 41 of the EECC.

text: 1.3 VERSIONS AND CHANGES

text: ENISA updates this guideline periodically, when necessary, in agreement with the competent authorities.

text: This fourth version of the Guideline constitutes an update to the Guideline published on 10 December 2020.

text: List of the main changes in the fourth version:

text:  Corrections to select measures and evidence in Security Objective 2: ‘Governance and risk management’

text:  Updated the name of Security Objective 4 to ‘Security of third-party dependencies’ and expanded its measure a)

text:  Amended the description underneath Security Objective 14: Protection of security critical data’. Furthermore, amended measure a) and evidence i. of this objective

text:  Amended Section 5.8: ‘Mapping Security Domains’, primarily by way of additions

text:  Amended Section 5.9: ‘Mapping Security Objectives’, primarily by way of mapping additional ISO27002:2013 controls

text:  Introduced corrections throughout the Guideline, including to referencing international standards

text: Structure of this document

text: In Section 2 we summarize the role and objectives of ENISA related to the implementation of Article 40 of the EECC. In Section 3 we introduce

text: Article 40

text: , the scope and the terminology used in this document. In Section 4 we list 29 security objectives, divided in 9 domains, and we provide details about security measures and evidence. In Section 5 we give guidance on potential regulatory activities competent authorities could deploy to assess compliance to the security measures required by Article 40 of the EECC. In Section 6 we provide a mapping from the security measures in this guideline to some well-known international standards.

text: 2. BACKGROUND

text: In this section we summarize the EU policy context and we explain ENISA’s role and objectives.

text: 2.1 EU POLICY CONTEXT

text: The European Electronic Communications Code, the EECC, is an EU directive, meaning that EU countries have to transpose it into national legislation. The deadline for this transposition was 21 December 2020. The new EECC has now replaced the four EU directives. In this paper, we refer to these directives as the “old rules”.

text: • The Framework Directive, which is based on the Framework Directive

text: as amended by Directive

text: . • The Access Directive, which is based on the Access Directive

text: and amended by Directive

text: . • The Authorisation Directive is based on the Authorisation Directive

text: and amended by Directive

text: . • The Universal Service Directive is based on the Universal Service Directive

text: and the Citizens' Rights Directive

text: These rules were last modified in 2009 as part of a wider EU telecom reform, which included also the ePrivacy directive , addressing confidentiality and privacy in electronic communications and the BEREC regulation , establishing the Body of European telecom regulators.

text: 2.2 ENISA’S ROLE

text: Article 40 of the EECC asks ENISA to facilitate harmonization on the security aspects.

text: The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (‘ENISA’) shall facilitate, in accordance with

text: Regulation (EU) No 526/2013

text: of the European Parliament and of the Council ( ), the coordination of Member States to avoid diverging national requirements that may create security risks and barriers to the internal market.

text: 3. EECC DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY

text: 3.1 EECC DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY

text: In this section we introduce the relevant parts of the EECC and the related terms used in this document.

text: 3.1.1 EECC: Articles

text: and

text: and relevant recitals

text: Most of the security requirements are contained in

text: Article 40

text: and Article 41 of the EECC.

text: For the sake of reference we quote

text: Article 40

text: and

text: Article 41

text: in full below.

text: Article 40

text: Security of networks and services

text: 1. Member States shall ensure that providers of public electronic communications networks or of publicly available electronic communications services take appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures to appropriately manage the risks posed to the security of networks and services. Having regard to the state of the art, those measures shall ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk presented. In particular, measures, including encryption where appropriate, shall be taken to prevent and minimise the impact of security incidents on users and on other networks and services.

text: Regulation (EU) No 526/2013

text: of the European Parliament and of the Council (45), the coordination of Member States to avoid diverging national requirements that may create security risks and barriers to the internal market.

text: 2. Member States shall ensure that providers of public electronic communications networks or of publicly available electronic communications services notify without undue delay the competent authority of a security incident that has had a significant impact on the operation of networks or services.

text: In order to determine the significance of the impact of a security incident, where available the following parameters shall, in particular, be taken into account: (a) the number of users affected by the security incident; (b) the duration of the security incident; (c) the geographical spread of the area affected by the security incident; (d) the extent to which the functioning of the network or service is affected; (e) the extent of impact on economic and societal activities.

text: Where appropriate, the competent authority concerned shall inform the competent authorities in other Member States and ENISA. The competent authority concerned may inform the public or require the providers to do so, where it determines that disclosure of the security incident is in the public interest.

text: Once a year, the competent authority concerned shall submit a summary report to the Commission and to ENISA on the notifications received and the action taken in accordance with this paragraph.

text: 3. Member States shall ensure that in the case of a particular and significant threat of a security incident in public electronic communications networks or publicly available electronic communications services, providers of such networks or services shall inform their users potentially affected by such a threat of any possible protective measures or remedies which can be taken by the users. Where appropriate, providers shall also inform their users of the threat itself.

text: 4. This Article is without prejudice to

text: Regulation (EU) 2016/679

text: and Directive

text: 5. The Commission, taking utmost account of ENISA’s opinion, may adopt implementing acts detailing the technical and organisational measures referred to in paragraph 1, as well as the circumstances, format and procedures applicable to notification requirements pursuant to paragraph 2. They shall be based on European and international standards to the greatest extent possible, and shall not prevent Member States from adopting additional requirements in order to pursue the objectives set out in paragraph 1.

text: Article 41

text: Implementation and enforcement

text: 1. Member States shall ensure that, in order to implement

text: Article 40

text: , the competent authorities have the power to issue binding instructions, including those regarding the measures required to remedy a security incident or prevent one from occurring when a significant threat has been identified and time-limits for implementation, to providers of public electronic communications networks or publicly available electronic communications services.

text: 2. Member States shall ensure that competent authorities have the power to require providers of public electronic communications networks or publicly available electronic communications services to: (a) provide information needed to assess the security of their networks and

text: services, including documented security policies; and

text: (b) submit to a security audit carried out by a qualified independent body or a competent authority and make the results thereof available to the competent authority; the cost of the audit shall be paid by the provider.

text: 3. Member States shall ensure that the competent authorities have all the powers necessary to investigate cases of non-compliance and the effects thereof on the security of the networks and services.

text: 4. Member States shall ensure that, in order to implement

text: Article 40

text: , the competent authorities have the power to obtain the assistance of a Computer Security Incident Response Team (‘CSIRT’) designated pursuant to

text: Article 9 of Directive (EU) 2016/1148

text: in relation to issues falling within the tasks of the CSIRTs pursuant to point 2 of Annex I to that Directive.

text: 5. The competent authorities shall, where appropriate and in accordance with national law, consult and cooperate with the relevant national law enforcement authorities, the competent authorities within the meaning of

text: Article 8(1) of Directive (EU) 2016/1148

text: and the national data protection authorities.

text: In addition, we include full or partial text of several recitals that are of direct or indirect relevance for ensuring security of networks and services:

text: (17) Interpersonal communications services are services that enable interpersonal and interactive exchange of information, covering services like traditional voice calls between two individuals but also all types of emails, messaging services, or group chats. Interpersonal communications services only cover communications between a finite, that is to say not potentially unlimited, number of natural persons, which is determined by the sender of the communication.

text: (18) […] The mere use of a number as an identifier should not be considered to be equivalent to the use of a number to connect with publicly assigned numbers and should therefore, in itself, not be considered to be sufficient to qualify a service as a number-based interpersonal communications service.

text: (94) […] Security measures should take into account, as a minimum, all the relevant aspects of the following elements: as regards security of networks and facilities: physical and environmental security, security of supply, access control to networks and integrity of networks; as regards handling of security incidents: handling procedures, security incident detection capability, security incident reporting and communication; as regards business continuity management: service continuity strategy and contingency plans, disaster recovery capabilities; as regards monitoring, auditing and testing: monitoring and logging policies, exercise contingency plans, network and service testing, security assessments and compliance monitoring; and compliance with international standards.

text: interpersonal communications services should be lighter. […]

text: (96) Providers […] should inform users of particular and significant security threats and of measures they can take to protect the security of their communications, for instance by using specific types of software or encryption technologies. […]

text: (97) In order to safeguard security of networks and services, and without prejudice to the Member States’ powers to ensure the protection of their essential security interests and public security, and to permit the investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences, the use of encryption for example, end-to-end where appropriate, should be promoted and, where necessary, encryption should be mandatory in accordance with the principles of security and privacy by default and by design.

text: (98) Competent authorities should ensure that the integrity and availability of public electronic communications networks are maintained. The European Union Agency for

text: Network and Information Security (‘ENISA’) should contribute to an enhanced level of security of electronic communications by, inter alia, providing expertise and advice, and promoting the exchange of best practices. The competent authorities should have the necessary means to perform their duties, including powers to request the information necessary to assess the level of security of networks or services. They should also have the power to request comprehensive and reliable data about actual security incidents that have had a significant impact on the operation of networks or services. They should, where necessary, be assisted by Computer Security Incident Response Teams (‘CSIRTs’) established by Directive (EU) 2016/ 1148 of the European Parliament and of the Council . In particular, CSIRTs may be required to provide competent authorities with information about risks and security incidents affecting public electronic communications networks and publicly available electronic communications services, and recommend ways to address them.

text: 3.2 TERMINOLOGY

text: We reiterate some of the definitions and terms used extensively in this document.

text: 3.2.1 Security of networks and services

text: Article 2 (21) of the EECC defines ‘security of networks and services’ as the ability of electronic communications networks and services to resist, at a given level of confidence, any action that 9 10 11 12 compromises the availability , authenticity , integrity or confidentiality of those networks and services, of stored or transmitted or processed data, or of the related services offered by, or accessible via, those electronic communications networks or services.

text: 3.2.2 Security incidents

text: Article 2 (42) of the EECC defines ‘security incident’ as an event having an actual adverse effect on the security of electronic communications networks or services.

text: 3.2.3 Competent authorities

text: The term ‘competent authorities’ is used in this document in line with the terminology used in Article 41 of the EECC, meaning those national authorities with competences to supervise

text: Article 40

text: , the implementation of security measures in the national telecom sector . In practice these competences may be split or shared between multiple national authorities.

text: 3.2.4 Security measures

text: Article 40 of the EECC defines ‘security measures’ as technical and organisational measures for managing the risks posed to the security of networks and services.

text: 3.2.5 NI-ICS

text: Article 2 (7) of the EECC defines a ‘number-independent interpersonal communications service’ as an interpersonal communications service, which does not connect with “publicly assigned numbering resources”, meaning (national or international) telephone numbers, or which does not enable communication with these (national or international) telephone numbers. In this document we use the acronym NI ICS for the sake of brevity.

text: 4. SECURITY MEASURES

text: In this section we provide a list of 29 security objectives which competent authorities should take into account when assessing compliance of providers to Article 40 of the EECC.

text: We stress that this is only a guideline for competent authorities and that it is at the discretion of competent authorities to mandate or recommend different or additional security objectives, or different security measures.

text: Note that some of the security objectives or security measures may not be relevant or appropriate in all settings for all types of providers, depending on the type of networks or services offered .

text: 4.1 ASSETS IN SCOPE AND RISK ASSESSMENT

text: The scope of the security measures is defined as follows.

text: Assets in scope: All assets of the provider (including relevant third party assets) which, when compromised and/or failing, can have a negative impact on the security of networks and services.

text: Providers should perform analysis, specific for their particular setting, to determine which assets are in scope and should subsequently conduct risk assessment to determine which security measures are appropriate. Risk assessments need updating, to address changes and past incidents, because risks change over time. Note that this guideline does not address risk assessment in detail. There are several standard methodologies providers could use for this (see References).

text: Remark on classical information security risk management: It is good to mention here that

text: there is a lot of information security literature which focusses on how an organization can manage the information security risks related to the use of network and information security, for example through the establishment of an information security management system. A wellknown example of a related standard is ISO 27001. Article 40 of the EECC, however, focuses primarily on risks for the users who rely on the networks and communications services provided by the provider, and not the risks for the provider. This means in practice that, while enterprise risk management methodologies are very helpful, they may not be fully suitable to be used for the EECC without adaptation.

text: 4.1.1 Primary and secondary assets

text: In some literature there is a distinction between primary assets and secondary (supporting) assets. In this context (Article 40 of the EECC) the primary assets are the electronic communication networks and services provided by the provider.

text: In this document when we speak about assets we mean the secondary assets i.e. the systems and processes supporting the provision of electronic communications networks and services (such as base stations, routers, registers, power supply, etc.).

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.2 CRITICAL ASSETS

text: In the remainder of this document, we use the term critical assets for assets (network and information systems, processes, data, etc.) which, when compromised and/or fail, there would be a severe impact on the security of networks and services. When determining severity of the impact, factors like type (e.g. whether the materialisation of a threat leads to compromised confidentiality, integrity and/or availability of the network) and scale of impact (e.g. in terms of affected users, duration, sensitivity of information altered or accessed) could be considered . Parameters related to determination of significance of the impact of a security incident as listed in EECC

text: Article 40 (2)

text: and reproduced in section 3.1 should also be taken into account.

text: Critical assets should (obviously) be protected with priority.

text: 4.2.1 Personnel and key personnel

text: In this document the term “personnel” refers to employees, contractors, and third-party users. We use the term “key personnel” to refer to the key roles in the organization with respect to security of networks and services. Now providers are not all the same and organizations and job profiles are different, but typically this would include roles like the CEO, the CIO, the CISO, the business continuity manager and system administrators of critical systems.

text: 4.2.2 Third parties and outsourcing

text: In this document we use the term “third parties” to refer to parties (organizations, individuals) the provider works with to deliver the services, i.e. vendors the provider buys products from, suppliers, consultants who advise the provider, auditors auditing the provider, companies the provider outsources work to, and so on .

text: Third parties and third party assets are in scope just as if they were assets of the providers. In other words, even if certain processes are outsourced, the provider remains responsible for ensuring that appropriate security measures are taken to protect the security of networks and services it is providing.

text: 4.3 STRUCTURE OF THE SECURITY MEASURES

text: This document lists 29 security objectives which have been derived from a set of international and national standards that are commonly used by providers in the EU’s electronic communication sector (see References). For each of the security objectives we list more detailed security measures which could be implemented by providers to reach the security objective. For each security objective we also list detailed evidence which could indicate that the measures are in place. Note that the security measures or the evidence should not be seen as a baseline or list of minimum requirements for providers (see the remark below).

text: The security measures are grouped in 3 different sophistication levels, defined as follows.

text: Figure 3: Structure of the security measures

text: The levels are cumulative. In other words, at level 2 we do not repeat the security measures and the evidence for level 1, for the sake of brevity, but they are understood to be included (accumulated). And similarly at level 3 the security measures are understood to include the ones of levels 1 and 2. If the measures at level 1 are not (fully) implemented than this could be called level 0, but we do not explicitly mention level 0 in this document. The overall structure of the security objectives and security measures is depicted as following. Figure 4: Overall structure of the security objectives and security measures

text: Remark about baselines and minimum security measures: Neither the high-level security

text: objectives in this document nor the detailed security measures should be seen as binding recommendations about which are appropriate security measures for providers to take. So, for example, the security measures at level 1 are not to be considered “the minimum” for the sector. Risks are different for different providers and it depends on the specifics (the setting, the type of provider, the type of services offered, the assets in question, etc.) which security objectives are important and which measures are appropriate.

text: Remark about separate measures: We list a number of individual security measures, one by

text: one. But this should not be seen as a recommendation to split security activities into parts, or to keep separate standalone documents or files for each measure. For example, one could imagine using a single inventory of assets could be used for risk assessment, change management and asset management procedures.

text: Remark about technological limitations and implementation feasibility: Some of the

text: recommended measures may be more difficult (or not simply not feasible) to implement in an old or legacy systems with outdated equipment, using old technology and/or relying on old standards and network protocols. In such cases, it is advisable to have limitations and exclusions stated and documented and to consider including formal decommissioning plans for these old or legacy systems.

text: 4.4 SECURITY OBJECTIVES AND SECURITY MEASURES

text: Below we list 29 high-level security objectives (SO1, SO2, etc.), grouped in 8 domains (D1, D2, etc.). For each security objective we list detailed security measures, which could be implemented by the provider, as well as the type of evidence that could be taken into consideration by an auditor, for example, when assessing if measures are in place.

text: We list the 8 domains and the 29 security objectives below for the sake of reference:

text: D1: GOVERNANCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT

text: SO1: Information security policy SO2: Governance and risk management SO3: Security roles and responsibilities SO4: Security of third party dependencies

text: D2: HUMAN RESOURCES SECURITY

text: SO5: Background checks SO6: Security knowledge and training SO7: Personnel changes SO8: Handling violations

text: D3: SECURITY OF SYSTEMS AND FACILITIES

text: SO9: Physical and environmental security SO10: Security of supplies SO11: Access control to network and information systems SO12: Integrity of network and information systems SO13: Use of encryption SO14: Protection of security critical data

text: D4: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

text: SO15: Operational procedures SO16: Change management SO17: Asset management

text: D5: INCIDENT MANAGEMENT

text: SO18: Incident management procedures SO19: Incident detection capability SO20: Incident reporting and communication

text: D6: BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT

text: SO21: Service continuity strategy and contingency plans SO22: Disaster recovery capabilities

text: D7: MONITORING, AUDITING AND TESTING

text: SO23: Monitoring and logging policies SO24: Exercise contingency plans SO25: Network and information systems testing SO26: Security assessments SO27: Compliance monitoring

text: D8: THREAT AWARENESS

text: SO28: Threat intelligence SO29: Informing users about threats

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.1 D1: Governance and risk management

text: The domain “Governance and risk management” covers the security objectives related to governance and management of network and information security risks.

text: 4.4.1.1 SO1: Information security policy

text: Establish and maintain an appropriate information security policy.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Set a high level security policy i. Documented security policy, addressing the security of networks including networks and services in and services. scope, critical assets supporting them, and the security objectives. b) Make key personnel aware of the security policy. ii. Key personnel are aware of the security policy and its objectives (interview).

text: 2 c) Set detailed information security iii. Documented information security policies for critical assets and business policies, approved by processes. management, including applicable law and regulations, accessible to d) Make all personnel aware of the personnel. security policy and what it implies for their work. iv. Personnel are aware of the information security policy and e) Review the security policy following what it implies for their work incidents. (interview). v. Review comments or change logs for the policy.

text: 3 f) Review the information security vi. Information security policies are up policies periodically, and take into to date and approved by senior account violations, exceptions, past management. incidents, past tests/exercises, and vii. Logs of policy exceptions, incidents affecting other (similar) approved by the relevant roles. providers in the sector. viii. Documentation of review process, taking into account changes and past incidents.

text: 4.4.1.2 SO2: Governance and risk management

text: Establish and maintain an appropriate governance and risk management framework, to identify and address risks for the communications networks and services.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Make a list of the main risks for i. List of main risks described at a security of networks and services, high level, including the underlying taking into account main threats for the threat(s) and their potential impact critical assets. on the security of networks and services b) Make key personnel aware of the main risks and how they are mitigated. ii. Key personnel know the main risks (interview).

text: 2 c) Set up a risk management iii. Documented risk management methodology and/or tools based on methodology and/or tools. industry standards. iv. Guidance for personnel on d) Ensure that key personnel use the risk assessing risks. management methodology and tools. v. List of risks and evidence of e) Review the risk assessments following updates/reviews. changes or incidents. vi. Review comments or change logs f) Ensure residual risks are accepted by for risk assessments. management. vii. Management approval of residual risks.

text: 3 g) Review the risk management viii. Documentation of the review methodology and/or tools, periodically, process and updates of the risk taking into account changes and past management methodology and/or incidents. tools.

text: 4.4.1.3 SO3: Security roles and responsibilities

text: Establish and maintain an appropriate structure of security roles and responsibilities.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Assign security roles and i. List of security roles (CISO, DPO, responsibilities to personnel. business continuity manager, etc.), who occupies them and contact b) Make sure the security roles are information. reachable in case of security incidents.

text: 2 c) Personnel is formally appointed in ii. List of appointments (CISO, DPO, security roles. etc.), and description of responsibilities and tasks for d) Make personnel aware of the security security roles (CISO, DPO, etc.). roles in your organisation and when they should be contacted. iii. Awareness/dissemination material for personnel explaining security roles and when/how they should be contacted.

text: 3 e) Structure of security roles and iv. Up-to-date documentation of the responsibilities is regularly reviewed structure of security role and revised, based on changes and/or assignments and responsibilities past incidents. v. Documentation of review process, taking into account changes and past incidents.

text: 4.4.1.4 SO4: Security of third-party dependencies

text: Establish and maintain a policy, with security requirements for contracts with third parties (see Section 4.2.2), to ensure that dependencies on third parties do not negatively affect security of networks and/or services.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Include security requirements in i. Explicit security requirements in contracts with third-parties, including the contracts with third parties confidentiality and secure transfer of supplying IT products, IT services, information. outsourced business processes, helpdesks, call centres, interconnections, shared facilities, etc.

text: 2 b) Set a security policy for contracts ii. Documented security policy for with third-parties. contracts with third parties. c) Ensure that all procurement of iii. List of contracts with third-parties. services/products from third-parties iv. Contracts for third party services follows the policy. contain security requirements, in d) Review security policy for third line with the security policy for parties, following incidents or procurement. changes. v. Review comments or change logs e) Demand specific security standards of the policy. in third-party supplier’s processes vi. Contracts with equipment suppliers during procurement. contain requirements for adhering f) Mitigate residual risks that are not to security best practices and addressed by the third party. industry standards . vii. Residual risks resulting from dependencies on third parties are listed and mitigated.

text: 3 g) Keep track of security incidents viii. List of security incidents related to related to or caused by third-parties. or caused by engagement with third-parties. h) Periodically review and update security policy for third parties at ix. Documentation of the policy review regular intervals, taking into account process. past incidents, changes, etc.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.2 D2: Human resources security

text: The domain “Human resources security” covers the security objectives related to personnel.

text: 4.4.2.1 SO5: Background checks

text: Perform appropriate background checks on personnel if required for their duties and responsibilities.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Check professional references of key i. Documentation of checks of personnel (system administrators, professional references for key security officers, guards, etc.). personnel.

text: 2 b) Perform background checks/screening ii. Policy and procedure for for key personnel, when needed and background checks/screenings. legally permitted. iii. Guidance for personnel about c) Set up a policy and procedure for when/how to perform background background checks. checks/screenings.

text: 3 d) Review and update policy/procedures iv. Review comments or change logs for background checks and reference of the policy/procedures. checks at regular intervals, taking into account changes and past incidents.

text: 4.4.2.2 SO6: Security knowledge and training

text: Ensure that personnel have sufficient security knowledge and that they are provided with regular security training.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Provide key personnel with relevant i. Key personnel have followed training and material on security security trainings and have issues. sufficient security knowledge (interview).

text: 2 b) Implement a program for training, ii. Personnel have participated in making sure that key personnel have awareness sessions on security sufficient and up-to-date security topics. knowledge. iii. Documented program for training c) Organise trainings and awareness on security skills, including sessions for personnel on security objectives for different roles and topics important for your organisation. how to reach them (by e.g. training, awareness raising, etc.).

text: 3 d) Review and update the training iv. Updated security awareness and program periodically, taking into training program account changes and past incidents. v. Results of tests of the security e) Test the security knowledge of knowledge of personnel. personnel. vi. Review comments or change logs for the program.

text: 4.4.2.3 SO7: Personnel changes

text: Establish and maintain an appropriate process for managing changes in personnel or changes in their roles and responsibilities.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Following changes in personnel revoke i. Evidence that personnel changes access rights, badges, equipment, have been followed up with etc., if no longer necessary or revocation of access rights, badges, permitted. equipment, etc. b) Brief and educate new personnel on ii. Evidence that new personnel has the policies and procedures in place. been briefed and educated about policies and procedures in place.

text: 2 c) Implement policy/procedures for iii. Documentation of process for personnel changes, taking into personnel changes, including account timely revocation of access responsibilities for managing rights, badges and equipment. changes, description of rights of access and possession of assets per d) Implement policy/procedures for role, procedures for briefing and education and training for personnel in training personnel in new roles. new roles. iv. Evidence that personnel changes have been carried out according to the process and that access rights have been updated timely (e.g. checklists).

text: 3 e) Periodically check that the v. Evidence of checks of access rights policy/procedures are effective. etc. f) Review and evaluate policy/procedures vi. Up to date policy/procedures for for personnel changes, taking into managing personnel changes. account changes or past incidents. vii. Review comments or change logs.

text: 4.4.2.4 SO8: Handling violations

text: Establish and maintain a disciplinary process for personnel who violate security policies and have a broader process that covers security incidents caused by violations by personnel.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Hold personnel accountable for i. Rules for personnel, including security incidents caused by violations responsibilities, code of conduct, of policies, for example via the violations of policies, etc., possibly as employment contract. part of employment contracts.

text: 2 b) Set up procedures for violations of ii. Documentation of procedures, policies by personnel. including types of violations which may be subject to disciplinary actions, and which disciplinary actions may be taken.

text: 3 c) Periodically review and update the iii. Review comments or change logs disciplinary process, based on changes and past incidents.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.3 D3: Security of systems and facilities

text: This domain “Security of systems and facilities” covers the physical and logical security of network and information systems and facilities.

text: 4.4.3.1 SO9: Physical and environmental security

text: Establish and maintain the appropriate physical and environmental security of network and information systems and facilities.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Prevent unauthorized physical access i. Basic implementation of physical to facilities and infrastructure and set security measures and up adequate environmental controls, to environmental controls , such as protect provider assets against door and cabinet locks, burglar unauthorized access, burglary, fire, alarm, fire alarms, fire extinguishers, flooding, etc. etc.

text: 2 b) Implement a policy for physical security ii. Documented policy for physical measures and environmental controls. security measures and environmental controls, including c) Industry standard implementation of description of facilities and systems physical and environmental controls. in scope. d) Apply reinforced controls for physical 23 iii. Physical and environmental controls, access to critical assets . like electronic control of entrance and audit trail, segmentation of spaces according to authorization levels, automated fire extinguishers with halocarbon gases, etc. iv. The policy includes lists of critical assets and reinforced physical controls for accessing these assets.

text: 3 e) Evaluate the effectiveness of physical v. Up to date policy for physical security and environmental controls measures and environmental periodically. controls f) Review and update the policy for vi. Documentation about evaluation of physical security measures and environmental control, review environmental controls taking into comments or change logs. account changes and past incidents.

text: 4.4.3.2 SO10: Security of supplies

text: Establish and maintain appropriate security of critical supplies (for example electric power, fuel, cooling etc. ).

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Ensure security of critical supplies. i. Security of critical supplies is protected in a basic way, for example, backup power and/or backup fuel is available.

text: 2 b) Implement a policy for security of ii. Documented policy to protect critical critical supplies. supplies such as electrical power, fuel, etc., describing different types of c) Implement industry standard security supplies, and the security measures measures to protect critical supplies protecting the supplies. and supporting facilities (e.g. passive cooling, automatic restart after power iii. Evidence of industry standard interruption, battery backup power, measures to protect the security of diesel generators, backup fuel, etc.). critical supplies

text: 3 d) Implement state of the art security iv. Evidence of state of the art measures measures to protect critical supplies to protect security of critical supplies. (such as active cooling, UP, hot v. Updated policy for securing critical standby power generators, SLAs with supplies and supporting facilities, fuel delivery companies, redundant review comments and/or change cooling and power backup systems). logs. e) Review and update policy and procedures to secure critical supplies regularly, taking into account changes and past incidents.

text: 4.4.3.3 SO11: Access control to network and information systems

text: Establish and maintain appropriate (logical) access controls for access to network and information systems.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Users and systems have unique ID’s i. Access logs show unique identifiers and are authenticated before for users and systems when granted accessing services or systems. or denied access. b) b) Implement logical access control ii. Overview of authentication and mechanism for network and access control methods for systems information systems to allow only and users. authorized use.

text: 2 c) Implement policy for protecting access iii. Access control policy including to network and information systems, description of roles, groups, access addressing for example roles, rights, rights, procedures for granting and responsibilities and procedures for revoking access. assigning and revoking access rights. iv. Different types of authentication d) Choose appropriate authentication mechanisms for different types of mechanisms, depending on the type of access. access. v. Log of access control policy e) Monitor access to network and violations and exceptions, approved information systems, have a process by the security officer. for approving exceptions and vi. Principles of least privilege and registering access violations. segregation of duties are f) Reinforce controls for remote access documented and applied where to critical assets of network and appropriate. information systems by third parties. vii. Remote access to critical assets by third-parties is minimised and subjected to strict access controls, including state of the art authentication, authorization and auditing controls, especially for privileged accounts.

text: 3 g) Evaluate the effectiveness of access viii. Reports of (security) tests of access control policies and procedures and control mechanisms. implement cross checks on access ix. Tools for detection of anomalous control mechanisms. usage of systems or anomalous h) Access control policy and access behaviour of systems (such as control mechanisms are reviewed and intrusion detection and anomaly when needed revised. detection systems). x. Logs of intrusion detection and anomaly detection systems. xi. Updates of access control policy, review comments or change logs. xii. Documented risk analysis for the application of logging and retention xiii. Procedures to ensure that access controls are in effect all the time and that they evolve with the network.

text: 4.4.3.4 SO12: Integrity of network and information systems

text: Establish and maintain integrity of network and information systems and protect from viruses, code injections, and other malware that can alter the functionality of systems.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Make sure software of network and i. Software and data in network and information systems is not tampered information systems is protected with or altered, for instance by using using input controls, firewalls, input controls and firewalls. encryption and signing. b) Check for malware on (internal) ii. Malware detection systems are network and information systems. present, and up to date.

text: 2 c) Implement industry standard security iii. Documentation about how the measures, providing defence-in-depth protection of software and data in against tampering and altering of network and information system is systems. implemented. d) Apply reinforced software integrity, iv. Tools for detection of anomalous update and patch management usage of systems or anomalous controls for critical assets in virtualised behaviour of systems (such as networks. intrusion detection and anomaly detection systems). v. Logs of intrusion detection and anomaly detection systems. vi. Adequate tools and processes to ensure software integrity when performing software updates and applying security patches to critical assets in virtualised networks.

text: 3 e) Set up state of the art controls to vii. State of the art controls to protect protect integrity of systems. integrity of systems, such as code signing, tripwire, etc. f) Evaluate and review the effectiveness of measures to protect integrity of viii. Documentation of process for systems. checking logs of anomaly and intrusion detection systems.

text: 4.4.3.5 SO13: Use of encryption

text: Ensure adequate use of encryption to prevent and/or minimise the impact of security incidents on users and on other networks and services.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Where appropriate to prevent and/or i. Description of main data flows, and minimise the impact of security the encryption protocols and incidents on users and on other algorithms used for each flow. networks and services, encrypt data ii. Description of justified exclusions and during its storage in and/or 27 limitations in implementing transmission via networks. encryption.

text: 2 b) Implement encryption policy. iii. Documented encryption policy including details about the c) Use industry standard encryption cryptographic algorithms and algorithms and the corresponding corresponding cryptographic keys, recommended lengths of encryption according to international best keys. practices and standards. iv. Documented justified exclusions that provide rationale for when data is not encrypted, including the related impact assessment.

text: 3 d) Review and update the encryption v. Updated encryption policy, review policy. comments and/or change logs. e) Use state of the art encryption vi. Encryption policy includes details algorithms. about the state of the art cryptographic protocols used.

text: 4.4.3.6 SO14: Protection of security critical data

text: Ensure that cryptographic key material and secret authentication information are adequately protected.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Make sure that cryptographic key i. Cryptographic key material and material and secret authentication secret authentication information are information (including cryptographic protected using security best key material used for authentication) practices and standards for are not disclosed or tampered with. protection mechanisms (like split knowledge and dual control, b) Access to private keys is strictly encryption, hashing, secure controlled and monitored. hardware etc.). ii. Description of mechanisms for controlling and monitoring access to private keys.

text: 2 c) Implement policy for management of iii. Key management policy including cryptographic keys. roles, responsibilities and controls for the use, protection and lifetime of d) Implement policy for management of cryptographic keys throughout their user passwords. life cycle including controls for access to and backup and recovery of private keys. iv. User password management policy including processes, methods and techniques for secure storing of user passwords using industry best practices .

text: 3 e) Review and update of key v. Updated key management policy, management policy. review comments and/or change logs. f) Review and update of user password management policy. vi. Updated user password management policy, review comments and/or change logs.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.4 D4: Operations management

text: The domain “Operations management” covers operational procedures, change management and asset management.

text: 4.4.4.1 SO15: Operational procedures

text: Establish and maintain operational procedures for the operation of critical network and information systems by personnel.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Set up operational procedures and i. Documentation of operational assign responsibilities for operation of procedures and responsibilities for critical systems. key network and information systems. 2 b) Implement a policy for operation of ii. Documented policy for operation of systems to make sure all critical critical systems, including an systems are operated and managed in overview of network and information line with predefined procedures. systems in scope. 3 c) Review and update the iii. Updated policy/procedures for critical policy/procedures for operation of systems, review comments and/or critical systems, taking into account change logs. incidents and/or changes.

text: 4.4.4.2 SO16: Change management

text: Establish change management procedures for critical network and information systems in order to minimise the likelihood of incidents resulting from changes.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Follow predefined methods or i. Documentation describing predefined procedures when making changes to methods or procedures followed critical systems when making changes to critical systems. 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for ii. Documentation of change change management, to make sure management policy/procedures, that changes of critical systems are including systems subject to the always done following a predefined policy, objectives, roll back way. procedures, etc. c) Document change management iii. For each change, a report is available procedures, and record for each describing the steps and the result of change the steps of the followed the change. procedure. 3 d) Review and update change iv. Up to date change management management procedures regularly, procedures, review comments and/or taking into account changes and past change logs. incidents.

text: 4.4.4.3 SO17: Asset management

text: Establish and maintain asset management procedures and configuration controls in order to manage availability of critical assets and configurations of critical network and information systems.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Identify critical assets and i. List of critical assets and critical configurations of critical systems. systems. The list should include all critical assets and critical systems for network or service, operational and security, including relevant third party assets.

text: 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for asset ii. Documented policy/procedures for management and configuration asset management, including roles control. and responsibilities, the assets and configurations that are subject to the policy, the objectives of asset management. iii. An asset inventory or inventories, containing critical assets and the dependency between assets. iv. A configuration control inventory or inventories, containing configurations of critical systems.

text: 3 c) Review and update the asset v. Up to date asset management management policy regularly, based policy/procedures, review comments on changes and past incidents. and/or change logs.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.5 D5: Incident management

text: The domain “Incident management” covers detection of, response to, incident reporting, and communication about incidents .

text: 4.4.5.1 SO18: Incident management procedures

text: Establish and maintain procedures for managing incidents, and forwarding them to the appropriate personnel (triage).

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Make sure personnel is available and i. Personnel is aware of how to deal prepared to manage and handle with incidents and when to escalate. incidents. ii. Inventory of major incidents per b) Keep a record of all major incidents. incident, impact, cause, actions taken and lessons learnt.

text: 2 c) Implement policy/procedures for iii. Policy/procedures for incident managing incidents. management, including, types of incidents that could occur, objectives, roles and responsibilities, detailed description, per incident type, how to manage the incident, when to escalate to senior management (e.g. CISO) etc.

text: 3 d) Investigate major incidents and draft iv. Individual reports of the handling of final incident reports, including actions major incidents. taken and recommendations to v. Up to date incident management mitigate future occurrence of this type policy/procedures, review comments of incident. and/or change logs. e) Evaluate incident management policy/procedures based on past incidents.

text: 4.4.5.2 SO19: Incident detection capability

text: Establish and maintain an incident detection capability that detects incidents .

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Set up processes or systems for i. Documented examples of past incident detection. incidents that were detected and timely forwarded to the appropriate people.

text: 2 b) Implement industry standard systems ii. Incident detection systems and and procedures for incident detection. procedures, such as Security Incident and Event Management c) Implement systems and procedures for (SIEM) tools, security helpdesk for registering and forwarding incidents personnel, reports and advisories timely to the appropriate people. from Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERTs), tools to spot anomalies, etc. iii. Network Operation Centres (NOC) and/or Security Operation Centres (SOC) for ensuring visibility and effective network monitoring and to detect anomalies and to identify and avoid threats.

text: 3 d) Review systems and processes for iv. Up to date documentation of incident incident detection regularly and update detection systems and processes. them taking into account changes and v. Documentation of review of the past incidents. incident detection process, review e) Implement state of the art systems and comments, and/or change logs. procedures for incident detection. vi. NOC/SOC solutions with state of the art capabilities are used - e.g. SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation and Response), ensuring integration with threat and vulnerability management and incident response function, security operations automation etc.

text: 4.4.5.3 SO20: Incident reporting and communication

text: Establish and maintain appropriate incident reporting and communication procedures, taking into account national legislation on incident reporting to government authorities .

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Communicate and report about on- i. Evidence of past communications going or past incidents to third parties, and incident reporting. customers, and/or government authorities, when necessary.

text: 2 b) Implement policy and procedures for ii. Documented policy and procedures communicating and reporting about for communicating and reporting incidents. about incidents, describing reasons/motivations for communicating or reporting (business reasons, legal reasons etc.), the type of incidents in scope, the required content of communications, notifications or reports, the channels to be used, and the roles responsible for communicating, notifying and reporting. iii. Templates for incident reporting and communication.

text: 3 c) Evaluate past communications and iv. List of incident reports and past reporting about incidents. communications about incidents. d) Review and update the reporting and v. Up to date incident response and communication plans, based on communication policy, review changes or past incidents. comments, and/or change logs.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.6 D6: Business continuity management

text: The domain “Business continuity management” covers continuity strategies and contingency plans to mitigate major failures and natural or man-made disasters.

text: 4.4.6.1 SO21: Service continuity strategy and contingency plans

text: Establish and maintain contingency plans and a strategy for ensuring continuity of networks and communication services provided.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Implement a service continuity strategy i. Documented service continuity for the communications networks strategy, including recovery time and/or services provided. objectives for key services and processes

text: 2 b) Implement contingency plans for ii. Contingency plans for critical critical systems. systems, including clear steps and procedures for common threats, c) Monitor activation and execution of triggers for activation, steps and contingency plans, registering recovery time objectives. successful and failed recovery times. iii. Decision process for activating d) Implement contingency plans for contingency plans. dependent and inter-dependent critical sectors and services . iv. Logs of activation and execution of contingency plans, including decisions taken, steps followed, final recovery time.

text: v. Map of critical sectors and services essential for and/or dependent on the continuity of the network and service operation and contingency plans for mitigating the impact related to dependent and interdependent sectors and services.

text: 3 e) Review and revise service continuity vi. Up to date continuity strategy and strategy periodically. contingency plans, review comments, and/or change logs. f) Review and revise contingency plans, based on past incidents and changes.

text: 4.4.6.2 SO22: Disaster recovery capabilities

text: Establish and maintain an appropriate disaster recovery capability for restoring network and communication services in case of natural and/or major disasters.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Prepare for recovery and restoration of i. Measures are in place for dealing services following disasters. with disasters, such as failover sites in other regions, backups of critical data to remote locations, etc.

text: 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for ii. Documented policy/procedures for deploying disaster recovery deploying disaster recovery capabilities. capabilities, including list of natural and/or major disasters that could c) Implement industry standard disaster affect the services, and a list of recovery capabilities, or be assured disaster recovery capabilities (either they are available from third parties those available internally or provided (such as national emergency by third parties). networks). iii. Industry standard implementation of disaster capabilities, such as mobile equipment, mobile sites, failover sites, etc.

text: 3 d) Set up state of the art disaster recovery iv. State of the art disaster recovery capabilities to mitigate natural capabilities, such as full redundancy and/major disasters. and failover mechanisms to handle natural and/or major disasters. e) Review and update disaster recovery capabilities regularly, taking into v. Updated documentation of disaster account changes, past incidents, and recovery capabilities in place, review results of tests and exercises. comments and/or change logs

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.7 D7: Monitoring, auditing and testing

text: The domain “Monitoring, auditing and testing” covers monitoring, testing and auditing of network and information systems and facilities.

text: 4.4.7.1 SO23: Monitoring and logging policies

text: Establish and maintain systems and functions for monitoring and logging of relevant security events in critical network and communication systems.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Implement monitoring and logging of i. Logs and monitoring reports of critical critical systems. network and information systems.

text: 2 b) Implement policy for logging and ii. Documented policy for monitoring monitoring of critical systems. and logging, including minimum monitoring and logging requirements, c) Set up tools for monitoring critical retention period, and the overall systems objectives of storing monitoring data d) Set up tools to collect and store logs of and logs. critical systems. iii. Tools for monitoring systems and collecting logs. iv. List of monitoring data and log files, in line with the policy.

text: 3 e) Set up tools for automated collection v. Tools to facilitate structural recording and analysis of monitoring data and and analysis of monitoring and logs. logs. vi. Updated documentation of monitoring f) Review and update logging and and logging policy/procedures, monitoring policy/procedures, taking review comments, and/or change into account changes and past logs. incidents.

text: 4.4.7.2 SO24: Exercise contingency plans

text: Establish and maintain policies for testing and exercising backup and contingency plans, where needed in collaboration with third parties.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Exercise and test backup and i. Reports of past exercises of backup contingency plans to make sure and contingency plans. systems and processes work and personnel is prepared for large failures and contingencies.

text: 2 b) Implement a program for exercising ii. Exercise program for backup and backup and contingency plans contingency plans, including types of regularly, using realistic scenarios contingencies, frequency, roles and covering a range of different scenarios responsibilities, templates and over time. procedures for conducting exercises, templates for exercise reports. c) Make sure that the issues and lessons learnt from exercises are addressed by iii. Reports about exercises and drills the responsible people and that the showing the execution of relevant processes and systems are contingency plans, including lessons updated accordingly. learnt from the exercises. iv. Issues and lessons learnt from past exercises have been addressed by the responsible people

text: 3 d) Review and update the exercise plans, v. Updated exercise plans, review taking into account changes, past comments, and/or change logs. incidents and contingencies which vi. Input from suppliers and other third were not covered by the exercise parties involved about how to program. improve exercise scenarios. e) Involve suppliers and other third parties in exercises, for example business partners and customers.

text: 4.4.7.3 SO25: Network and information systems testing

text: Establish and maintain policies for testing network and information systems , particularly when connecting to new networks or systems.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Test networks and information systems i. Test reports of the network and before using them or connecting them information systems, including tests to existing systems. after big changes or the introduction of new systems.

text: 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for testing ii. Policy/procedures for testing network and information systems. networks and information systems, including when tests must be carried c) Implement tools for automated testing. out, test plans, test cases, test report templates.

text: 3 d) Review and update the iii. List of test reports. policy/procedures for testing, taking iv. Updated policy/procedures for testing into account changes and past networks and information systems, incidents. review comments, and/or change log.

text: 4.4.7.4 SO26: Security assessments

text: Establish and maintain an appropriate policy for performing security assessments of network and information systems.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Ensure critical systems undergo i. Reports from past security scans and security scans and security testing security tests. regularly, particularly when new systems are introduced and following changes.

text: 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for ii. Documented policy/procedures for security assessments and security security assessments and security testing. testing, including, which assets, in what circumstances, the type of security assessments and tests, frequency, approved parties (internal or external), confidentiality levels for assessment, test results and the objectives of security assessments and tests.

text: 3 c) Evaluate the effectiveness of iii. List of reports about security policy/procedures for security assessments and security tests. assessments and security testing. iv. Reports of follow up actions on d) Review and update policy/procedures assessments and test results. for security assessments and security v. Up to date policy/procedures for testing, taking into account changes security assessments and security and past incidents. testing, review comments, and/or change log.

text: 4.4.7.5 SO27: Compliance monitoring

text: Establish and maintain a policy for monitoring compliance to standards and legal requirements.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Monitor compliance to standards and i. Reports describing the result of legal requirements. compliance monitoring.

text: 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for ii. Documented policy/procedures for compliance monitoring and auditing. monitoring compliance and auditing, including what (assets, processes, infrastructure), frequency, guidelines who should carry out audits (in- or external), relevant security policies that are subject to compliance monitoring and auditing, the objectives and high level approach of compliance monitoring and auditing, templates for audit reports. iii. Detailed monitoring and audit plans, including long term high level objectives and planning

text: 3 c) Evaluate the policy/procedures for iv. List of all compliance and audit compliance and auditing. reports d) Review and update the v. Updated policy/procedures for policy/procedures for compliance and compliance and auditing, review auditing, taking into account changes comments, and/or change logs. and past incidents.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 4.4.8 D8: Threat awareness

text: The domain “Threat awareness” covers security objectives related to threat intelligence and to outreach to end-users for the purpose of sharing the information about major threats to the security of networks and services.

text: 4.4.8.1 SO28: Threat intelligence

text: Establish and maintain appropriate mechanisms for monitoring and collecting information about relevant threats to the security of networks and services.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Perform regular threat monitoring. i. Regular monitoring of external threat intelligence feeds (OSINT, commercial feeds, security researches etc. ) with a recorded log of relevant significant threat events. ii. Informal and ad-hoc sharing of relevant threat intelligence with relevant organisations on bilateral basis.

text: 2 b) Implement threat intelligence program. iii. Documented and implemented threat intelligence program that includes roles, responsibilities, procedures and mechanisms for collecting information related to significant threats and corresponding mitigation measures. iv. The program also includes mechanisms for systematic sharing of threat intelligence with relevant organisations on bilateral and multilateral basis using a dedicated threat intelligence sharing platform (e.g. MISP). v. Appropriate information marking scheme in place for facilitation of sharing of sensitive threat information (e.g. TLP).

text: 3 c) Review and update the threat vi. Updated threat intelligence program, intelligence program. review comments and/or change logs. d) Threat intelligence program makes use of state of the art threat intelligence vii. Threat intelligence platform (TIP) with systems. state of the art functionality is used (e.g. consolidation of threat intelligence feeds from various sources, automation, security analytics and integration with other security tools etc.)

text: 4.4.8.2 SO29: Informing users about threats

text: Inform users of particular and significant security threats to network or service that may affect the end-user and of the measures they can take to protect the security of their communications.

text: Security measures Evidence

text: 1 a) Inform end-users of communication i. Security bulletin, a dedicated threat networks and services about particular information web page or another and significant security threats to documented and tested mechanism network or service that may affect for reaching out to end-users in case them. of significant threats. ii. Documented lists of best practices and security recommendations for end-users to mitigate typical risks (e.g. encryption, strong authentication, updates, backups, user awareness etc.).

text: 2 b) Implement policy/procedures for iii. Documented and implemented endregular update of end-users about user outreach policy with defined security threats to network or service roles and responsibilities, that may affect them. mechanisms and criteria for identifying significant threats and procedures, tools and methods for timely and appropriate informing of end-users. iv. The policy includes mechanisms for identifying and sharing recommendations and best practices for end-users to mitigate specific threats.

text: 3 c) Review and update the v. Updated outreach policy, review policy/procedures for regular update of comments and/or change logs. end-users about security threats to network or service that may affect them.

text: 5. TECHNICAL SUPERVISION OF SECURITY MEASURES

text: The principles of security supervision under the new rules (Article 40 and 41 of the EECC) are a continuation of the old rules (

text: Article 13

text: a and

text: Article 13

text: b of the Framework directive). Under the new rules, as with under the old rules:

text:  Communication providers have to assess risks, take appropriate security measures and report significant incidents to competent authorities (

text: Article 13

text: a of the Framework directive, Article 40 of the EECC).  Competent authorities should have powers to supervise this, to enquire about measures in place, and to investigate cases of non-compliance by providers (

text: Article 13

text: b of the Framework directive, Article 41 of the EECC).

text: This means that for the new rules competent authorities can build on the experience and practice developed under the old rules.

text: The most common regulatory activities of competent authorities regarding supervision of security measures are :

text:  Mandating or recommending a security standard  Assessing compliance across the market  Taking a staged approach to supervision  Auditing providers (periodically, at random, and/or post-incident) In the remainder of this section we discuss the technical aspects of each of these activities.

text: 5.1 MANDATING OR RECOMMENDING A SECURITY STANDARD

text: There could be several reasons for mandating or recommending a standard of security measures:

text:  to provide guidance about what security measures should be implemented, for example by explaining high-level objectives or detailed security measures.  to provide a terminology for discussing about security objectives or security measures.  to provide a structure for supervision and auditing, by dividing security in different domains.  to provide a baseline, i.e. a minimum set of security measures that must be in place, for example because without basic security measures it may be difficult to conduct an audit, because key evidence, like logs, records about incidents, etc. may be missing.  to provide a mapping between different existing standards, for example, to be able to compare compliance and audit reports which are based on different standards.

text: Following we go into detail about the different options.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 5.1.1 Mandating versus recommending a security standard

text: When discussing the supervision of security legislation by government authorities there is often a discussion about whether or not the government authority should mandate a specific list of security measures, strongly recommend them, or just recommend them as guidance. One could argue that mandating a standard would create clarity about what providers need to do to be compliant. On the other hand, one could also argue that in most settings the sector, the organizations involved, the technology used, is just too diverse to allow for a single checklist of minimum security measures for the entire sector. Often only very high-level security standards could be reasonably applied to a wider number of organizations. Inevitably such high-level standards leave a lot of important technical details unaddressed. So it is hard to capture all the security requirements of Article 40 of the EECC comprehensively in one standard. At the same time for specific settings or specific issues the competent authority could mandate specific security measures to be taken. For instance, a competent authority could ask all providers to provide the competent authority with a contact point in case of contingencies, or ask all providers to have 4 hours of backup power for their base station controllers.

text: Note that when mandating security measures for specific aspects, it is important that competent authorities discuss with providers about effectiveness and feasibility beforehand. Such discussions could be triggered by large incidents or focus happened in the past period, frequent root causes, and/or other common issues (for example, about software vulnerabilities in common IT equipment).

text: Best practices in network and information security are rapidly changing, because information technology changes rapidly and because the capability of attackers changes rapidly. The competent authority is in a unique role to support and foster the exchange of and discussion about best practices between experts of different providers. In this way the competent authority supports that best practices are adopted across the sector. Especially providers with less experience and less expertise could benefit greatly from such discussions and exchanges.

text: 5.1.2 Using the ENISA guideline as a recommendation

text: Competent authorities could use this ENISA guideline to provide guidance to providers. The ENISA guideline consists of 29 high level security objectives derived from different standards (see References). To reach the security objectives, providers should choose appropriate technical security measures. This document lists detailed security measures which providers could take to reach the security objectives. The security measures are split in three (sophistication) levels ranging from 1) basic, to 2) industry standard, to 3) state of the art. Providers should assess the risks to their communications networks and services to understand which security measures are appropriate.

text: 5.1.3 Using the ENISA guideline as a mapping

text: Many (especially larger) providers already have a security standard or a security governance framework in place, often based on international standards. This ENISA guideline could be used as a neutral mapping to different standards in use by the industry. Such a mapping would allow providers to continue use existing international standards, and it would avoid incurring unnecessary costs for providers when complying with the requirements of Article 40 of the EECC.

text: In practice, for example, providers could show compliance to Article 40 of the EECC by providing audit reports or certification against existing industry standards, combined with a mapping from these standards to this ENISA guideline. In Section 6 we provide an example of such a mapping to some well-known international security standards.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 5.1.4 Using existing national or international standards or best practices

text: Competent authorities could refer to existing national or international standards or requirements, either as a baseline requirement or as a recommendation. An overview of standards widely used in the industry is included in the section References. Competent authorities should take into account national circumstances when choosing an appropriate set of standards or best practices. We would like to make three remarks in this regard:

text:  Competent authorities should take into account that some (especially the large) providers may operate in several EU countries, and that it would be cumbersome for these providers to adopt different standards in different countries. In this respect it could be useful to allow providers to use international standards which are widely used across the EU and in this way reduce compliance costs for these providers.

text:  In most countries the electronic communications sector is large (hundreds of providers) and contains both large providers (>10% of market share) and very small ones (<1% of market share). Competent authorities should also take into account the differences between the providers in their country. What might work for large providers may well be overwhelming for smaller providers, and vice versa, what might work for one provider might be inappropriate for another provider.

text:  Finally, competent authorities should take into account that best practices in network and information security are rapidly changing, because information technology changes rapidly and because the capability of attackers changes rapidly. This makes it hard to capture the high-level security requirement of Article 40 of the EECC comprehensively in a list of detailed security measures. In this light, competent authorities should focus first on supervising that providers assess risks and proactively take appropriate security measures, rather than on trying to cast detailed security measures in stone.

text: 5.2 ASSESSING COMPLIANCE ACROSS THE MARKET

text: Self-assessments could be used to get an overview of the kind of security measures taken by providers, across the sector. The security objectives and measures listed in Section 4 can be used directly in self-assessment forms. The sophistication levels (see Section 4) would allow providers to indicate, per security objective, what kind of security measures are in place. Used in this way the sophistication levels would allow for a quick comparison between providers across the sector. We give an example in the diagram below. Here the red bars indicate the level of sophistication of the security measures taken by one provider, while the green bars show the levels for a provider with less sophisticated security measures. Such a difference in sophistication may be justified by a difference in the type of services or networks being offered by the two providers.

text: Figure 5: Example of two different providers (green and red), with security measures at different levels of sophistication.

text: Depending on the motivation behind the assessment the competent authority could focus on a subset of security objectives. For example, a competent authority could be interested in a domain like business continuity or specific security objectives around change management.

text: Competent authorities could also restrict self-assessments to a subset of the sector, for instance providers with a certain number of users (more than 10% market share e.g.), a certain service (mobile networks, e.g.), or providers offering certain critical services (communications for ports and airports e.g.).

text: We provide two simplified examples of how a competent authority could set up a selfassessment form. In the first example, the competent authority assesses security measures across all providers in the sector, but with a focus on a subset of the security objectives.

text: Example: The competent authority of country D has organized a self-assessment focused on governance and risk management (domain D1 in the ENISA guideline). Self-assessment forms are emailed to all providers:

text: Indicate your estimate market share: (choose from <1%, >10%, >10%) Indicate which service you are offering: (fixed/mobile telephony, fixed/mobile internet) Per security objective, indicate the level of sophistication and if you can produce evidence.

text: SO1: Information security policy

text: Sophistication level: (choose from 0, 1, 2, 3). Evidence exists: (choose from yes, no).

text: SO2: Governance and risk management framework

text: SO3: Security roles and responsibilities

text: SO4: Managing third party networks or services

text: In the second example the competent authority focuses on a subset of security measures and a subset of providers:

text: Example: The competent authority in country E wants to focus on the issues behind a number of large mobile network outages in the past year which are caused by power cuts, cable cuts, and natural disasters. The competent authority focusses on the security measures which are most relevant in this context. Self-assessment forms are sent only to mobile network operators with large market share (>10%). Questions are a combination of multiple choice and open questions for a description of security measures in place, and open questions for the type of evidence that the provider can produce to substantiate answers.

text: For each of the security objectives SO9 (Physical and environmental security), SO10 (Security of supplies), SO21 (Service continuity strategy and contingency plans), SO22 (Disaster recovery capabilities), SO24 (Exercise contingency plans), indicate the

text: level of sophistication, on a scale from 0 to 3 (0 none, 1 basic, 2 industry standard, 3 state of the art):

text: Describe the security measures in place to reach the objective: (max 200 words)

text: Describe the evidence you could provide to the competent authority which could substantiate that measures are in place: (0 none, 1 internal documentation, 2 audit report from external

text: auditor)

text: Remark about confidentiality: Self-assessment results or profiles could be sensitive and it is

text: important to ensure confidentiality of results from other providers and/or the public. It is important to explain clearly the purpose of the assessment (for example, by explaining that there are no regulatory consequences) and to give explicit guarantees to providers about confidentiality of the results.

text: 5.3 SUPERVISION REGIME FOR NI-ICS PROVIDERS

text: In general, the security provisions in the EECC for NI-ICS are the same as for the numberbased services. Both are subject to (normal) ex-ante, supervision, and are required to provide information, submit to security audits and be subjected to investigation of non-compliance by the competent authorities. However, because these providers of do not normally exercise actual control over the transmission networks, there may be different risks for these providers, and certain security measures may not be needed, if justified on the basis of a risk assessment . See the recital 95:

text: (95) […] independent inter personal communications services, […] are also subject to appropriate security requirements in accordance with their specific nature and economic importance. Providers of such services should thus also ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk posed. Given that providers of number -independent interpersonal communications services normally do not exercise actual control over the transmission of signals over networks, the degree of risk for such services can be considered in some respects to be lower than for traditional electronic communications services. Therefore, where justified on the basis of the actual assessment of the security risks involved, the measures taken by providers of number-independent interpersonal communications services should be lighter. […]

text: In practice this means that, depending on the setting, the type of network or service offered, the assets involved, etc., some of the security measures in this guideline may not be fully applicable to NI-ICS providers. When assessing the compliance of providers with

text: Article 40

text: , competent authorities should take into account the type of network or service offered, the assets involved, the threats and resulting risks for this network or service.

text: 5.4 TECHNOLOGY PROFILES

text: This guideline on security measures is technology neutral. To provide more specific guidance for specific types of network/service providers, we supplement this guideline with “security profiles”, for technologies like 5G or providers NI ICS. These security profiles supplement this

text: generic and technology-agnostic guideline. The following supplementary security profiles are under development and will be published separately:

text:  Security profile for 5G MNOs, containing supplementary guidance for technical supervision of security measures for 5G MNOs;  Security profile for NI-ICS providers, containing supplementary guidance on numberindependent interpersonal communication services (NI-ICS).

text: Figure 6: ENISA Guideline on Security Measures under the EECC – Technologies Supplements

text: 5.5 TAKING A STAGED APPROACH

text: Depending on the national circumstances, competent authorities might want to adopt a staged approach in supervising (and enforcing) compliance to the security requirements of Article 40 of the EECC. In case some providers do not (yet) have appropriate security measures in place (or if they cannot provide evidence of this), competent authorities may want to give providers some time to comply, in stages. Competent authorities could use this guideline to adopt a staged approach. We discuss some possible options for staging:

text:  Services or assets in scope: One could first focus on a subset of services (for example mobile networks) or a subset of assets (for example, core network), and deal with other services later.

text: Example: The competent authority in country A wants to focus first on the mobile networks, because they are (nationally) the most critical. The competent authority starts with a self-assessment across providers of mobile networks. The scope of the assessment is ‘assets supporting mobile networks’. Other services are out of scope initially, as well as providers who do not offer mobile telephony networks.

text:  Providers in scope: One could first focus on a subset of providers, for example providers with a large market share, and look at other providers at a later stage.

text: Example: The competent authority in country B wants to focus first on the providers with large market share, because here a lot of users are at stake. The competent authority starts with collecting self-assessment reports from the main providers (>10% of market share). The survey is followed up by a series of workshops where the main causes of incidents are discussed. Next year the competent authority will start a separate supervision program for smaller providers (focussed more on guidance).

text:  Security domains: One could first focus on a subset of security objectives, business continuity for example, and focus on other objectives at a later stage.

text: Example: The competent authority in country C wants to focus first on the main incidents, taking into account the incidents reported by providers. Since last year in country A the incidents were mostly due to natural disasters, in the supervision the competent authority focusses first on the measures SO9, SO10, SO21, SO22, SO24. The competent authority will address other security measures at a later stage.

text:  Sophistication levels and baselines: Competent authorities could first focus on ensuring that all providers have taken the basic security measures, for example level 1 as defined in this guideline, and only later focus on ensuring that providers take more sophisticated security measures. We should stress here that such an approach would have limitations: particularly when the sector has both large and small providers: For large providers basic security measures may be insufficient, while for small providers they could be more than enough. It would be better to take differences across the sector into account and define different baselines for providers of different size.

text: Example: The competent authority in country D defines two profiles as baselines.

text:  The first profile contains the basic security measures for only the domains D1 Governance and risk management, D2 Human resource security, D3 Security of systems and facilities, – it is the baseline for small providers (<10% market share.

text:  The second profile contains industry standard security measures for all domains (D1, … D8)– it is the baseline for large providers (>10% of market share).

text: At a later stage the competent authority will review the profiles, and where needed raise the requirements in some areas or define different baselines for other types of providers (IXPs e.g.).

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 5.6 AUDITING PROVIDERS

text: Depending on the setting, competent authorities might want to require providers to undergo an audit. Depending on the setting and the goal of auditing different types of audits may be needed. In this section we discuss different options for auditing providers.

text: Note that auditing is not always easy because network and information systems are often complex. To understand if specific subsystems are working correctly, an auditor may need to have deep knowledge and expertise: in security the devil is in the details. To give one simple example: An auditor may find there is a firewall in place to protect certain systems, but the detailed firewall rules determine greatly the effectiveness of the firewall. One rule with one mistake may make the entire firewall useless.

text: Remark about audit costs: Competent authorities should take into account the costs of third-

text: party audits for providers, particularly the smaller providers. Self-assessments (see previous section) may be a more light-weight approach.

text: Remark about efficiency of audits: A frequent complaint from organizations subject to

text: information security audits is that auditing often forces them to generate a lot of paper work, and that this is not only useless but that it also diverts resources from the actual task at hand: making the network and information systems secure. Competent authorities should take into account that some providers are already partaking in compliance or certification programs (voluntarily or in the context of different legislation) and are already undergoing (internal or external) audits. If auditing is needed, it is important to leverage where possible existing audit reports and compliance evidence.

text: Remark about language and international operators: When requesting documentation or

text: evidence from providers, competent authorities should take into account that providers may keep certain relevant documentation (manuals, policies, procedures, etc.) in the English language for efficiency reasons, because the provider operates in several countries or because the operator employs personnel from abroad.

text: 5.6.1 Assessment types

text: An audit involves different types of assessments, for example a review of security policies or an interview with the CISO about contingency planning. Audits usually consist of a combination of different types of assessments. We discuss the different types below:

text:  Document review: Document review is essential in any audit. Relevant documents may include descriptions of policies, roles and responsibilities, descriptions of processes and procedures, systems architecture and design, test procedures and actual test results. Chapter 4 of this guideline includes descriptions of evidence which could be considered when assessing the implementation of security measures.  Interviews: In addition to document review, a lot of information may be collected by interviewing service provider employees. At small providers it may be enough to speak to one or two persons with commercial and technical responsibility. At large providers, typical roles to be interviewed are C-level managers (CIO), chief security officers (CSO or CISO), tactical/operational security officers, NOC managers, internal CERT team, product managers, and system administrators responsible for critical processes or systems.

text:  System evaluation: Besides documentation, certification, and interviews, the ultimate check to see if the networks and information systems are secure, and if policy/procedures are being applied in practice, is by inspecting or testing the system itself. In some settings system review may be needed, for example to understand how a security incident could have happened. System evaluation should focus on critical systems because it can be time-consuming.

text: 5.6.2 Auditor types

text: Auditing can be carried out by different parties.

text:  Self-assessment: In self-assessments there is really no auditor, but the personnel of the provider assesses and reports about compliance. Although self-assessment reports may be biased, they can provide useful information for providers and competent authorities. An advantage of self-assessments is that self-assessments are relatively cheap for providers. Earlier in this document, in Section 5.2, we discuss selfassessments in more detail.  Internal auditor: In large organizations, a provider could ask an internal security role or internal audit department to do an audit of certain systems or parts of the organization. Compared to self-assessments, an internal auditor may be less biased. An advantage is that internal auditors often know the organization inside out. Also internal auditors could more easily leverage the deep knowledge about the network and information systems at the provider.  External auditor: An audit report from an external auditor is even less biased. The only issue here may be that the external auditor may not know all the details about the organization and/or the network and information systems. This would make the entire audit more costly, because on the one hand the external auditor would need to dedicate a lot of time to study the setting and systems at the provider, and the provider would also need to dedicate a lot of time to providing the necessary information to the auditor.  Competent authority as auditor: The competent authority could carry out an audit of an provider, by using internal staff with auditing expertise, or by outsourcing the auditing to an auditing firm.  Certifying auditor: In certification a licensed auditor checks compliance to a specific standard. The audit report results in a certificate of compliance issued by a certifying authority. For example it is quite common for large providers to be ISO 27001 certified. Certification is often refreshed yearly, following a yearly re-audit. Competent authorities could require certification, and ask providers to submit their certificates as a way to show compliance .  Specialist auditor: In special cases the competent authority may want to designate a specific auditor, for a specific purpose or following a specific incident. For example, an competent authority could mandate providers to undergo a security scan of systems by a security scanning specialist.  Pool of auditors: The competent authority could designate a pool of external auditors. Criteria for auditors could be based on past experience (a track record of audits, or security tests) or be based on examination criteria. For example, competent authorities could start with a list of licensed auditors and offer them a yearly training which focuses on

text: Article 13

text: a requirements for the sector, in this way creating a pool of auditors.

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 5.6.3 Audit timing and objectives

text: The frequency and objectives of auditing varies. We distinguish two types of audits.

text:  Preventive audits: Preventive audits are usually done at fixed intervals, periodically. In the case of certification (see above) audits are carried out yearly or bi-yearly. Preventive audits often do not have a specific scope, however it is good practice to setup preventive periodic audits according to a multi-year plan and focus first on certain (important) issues and only later on other issues in subsequent audits. The frequency of auditing should take into account that providers may need some time to address deficiencies found in previous audits.

text: Example: The competent authority in country H mandates providers to undergo yearly (preventive) audits by 3rd party auditors. To simplify matters and to reduce the burden for providers, the competent authority works according to a 3 year supervision plan, focussing on urgent issues first: In the first year the scope of audits is restricted to business continuity, natural disasters and power cuts (measures SM9, SM10, SM21, SM22, SM24). In the second year the focus is on the storage and retention of customer data. In the third year all security measures will be audited.

text:  Post-incident audits: Post-incident auditing by an competent authority is usually done ad-hoc, depending on the type of incident and the setting. Post-incident audits have a specific focus – and usually they are aimed at assessing if security measures are in place to prevent the incident from re-occurring. The audit in this case has a specific scope (the services affected by the incident, the assets affected) and regards specific security measures (measures failing during the incident, or measures which could prevent re-occurrence).

text: 5.7 AUTHORISATIONS CONDITIONS 5.7.1 Authorisations

text: Member States are allowed to attach general authorisation conditions concerning the security of public networks. This was already envisaged under the “old rules” (Directive

text: ) and is also included in the Annex I of the EECC.

text: For the sake of clarity, in the next section we highlight those conditions listed in the Annex I of the EECC that are of particular relevance for the security of networks and services.

text: 5.7.2 Conditions

text: List of conditions which may be attached to general authorisations, rights of use for radio spectrum and rights of use for numbering resources are indicated in the Annex I of the EECC and are grouped in different categories, for general and specific conditions.

text: Of those conditions, some are specifically and directly related to assuring security of networks and services, such as:

text:  In Category A (General conditions which may be attached to a general authorisation): o Condition 8: Measures designed to ensure compliance with the standards or specifications referred to in

text: Article 39

text: (when standards or specifications referred to are related to information security, e.g. ISO 27001)

text:  In Category B (Specific conditions which may be attached to a general authorisation for the provision of electronic communication networks): o Condition 4: Maintenance of the integrity of public electronic communications networks in accordance with this Directive including by conditions to prevent electromagnetic interference between electronic communications networks or services in accordance with Directive

text: . o Condition 5: Security of public networks against unauthorised access in accordance with Directive

text: 6 MAPPING TO INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

text: The security measures described in this document (see Section 4) have been derived from existing international network and information security standards. This guideline is not intended to replace existing standards or frameworks that are used by providers. Providers could map the standards they use internally to the security measures in Section 4, and in this way show compliance with

text: Article 40

text: . In this section we give two examples of such a mapping.

text: 5.8 MAPPING SECURITY DOMAINS

text: Below, as an example, we map the security domains of Section 4 to a number of international standards frequently used by providers. We map to the following standards:

text:  ISO 27001:2013, a standard for information security management,

text:  ISO 27002:2013, a catalogue of information security controls,

text:  ISO 27036-3:2013, guidelines for information and communication technology supply chain security,

text:  ISO 27005:2018, a standard for information security risk management, and

text:  ISO 22301:2019, a standard for business continuity management.

text: Security Addressed in Details domains

text: ISO 27001 provides a standard for governance of information security risks. ISO 27005 provides a standard for risk management. ISO 27001 Section A.4 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 5) covers ISO 27001, Information security policies.

text: D1: Governance

text: ISO 27002, ISO and risk ISO 27001 Section A.7 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 7) covers 27005 and ISO

text: management

text: 27036-3. information security roles and responsibilities. ISO 27001 Section A.15 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 15) covers relationships with suppliers. ISO 27036-3, Part 3 provides guidelines for ICT supply chain security.

text: ISO 27001 Section A.7 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 7) covers D2: Human ISO 27001 background screening, information security roles and

text: resources

text: responsibilities, security knowledge and training, and security ISO 27002 personnel changes.

text: Security Addressed in Details domains

text: ISO 27001 Section A.11 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 11) covers physical and environmental security.

text: ISO 27001 Section A.11 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 9) covers D3: Security of ISO 27001 access control to information systems and facilities.

text: systems and

text: facilities ISO 27002 ISO 27001 Section A.13 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 13) covers network security.

text: ISO 27001 Section A.10 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 10) covers encryption (cryptography)

text: ISO 27001 Section A.13 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 12) D4: Operations ISO 27001 covers operational procedures and change management. management ISO 27002 ISO 27001 Section A.8 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 8) covers asset management.

text: ISO 27001 ISO 27001 Section A.16 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 16)

text: D5: Incident

text: covers management of information security incidents, as management ISO 27002 well as communications about security events.

text: ISO 27001 ISO 27001 Section A.11 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 17) D6: Business covers security aspects of business continuity continuity ISO 27002 management.

text: management

text: ISO 22301 ISO 22301 covers Business Continuity Management.

text: Monitoring is covered in ISO 27001 Sections A.12 and A.15 D7: Monitoring (and in ISO 27002 Chapters 12 and 15). ISO 27001 and security Security testing and compliance reviews are covered in testing ISO 27002 ISO 27001 Sections A.14 and A.18 (and in ISO 27002 Chapters 14 and 18).

text: User awareness is partially covered in ISO 27001 Section A.7 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 7) ISO 27001 Management of technical vulnerabilities is covered in ISO

text: D8: Threat

text: ISO 27002 72001 Section A.12.6.1 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 12).

text: awareness

text: Contact with special interest groups (e.g. for exchange of information about threats) is covered in ISO 27001 Section A.6.1.4 (and ISO 27002 Chapter 6)

text: We have used ISO standards in this example, but a similar mapping could be made to other national or international standards. For example, the mapping would look similar if, instead of ISO 27001 and ISO 27005, we would map to the ITU standards X.1051 (information security management) and X.1055 (risk management).

text: GUIDELINE ON SECURITY MEASURES UNDER THE EECC 5.9 MAPPING SECURITY OBJECTIVES

text: One could also make a more detailed mapping. Below, as an example, we map the security objectives in Section 4 to individual ISO 27002:2013 controls.

text: Security objectives Controls in ISO 27002:2013

text: SO1 Information security policy 5.1 Management direction for information security SO2 Governance and risk ISO 27001, sections 1 to 10 for governance

text: management

text: ISO 27001, sections 6.1, 8.2 and 8.3 for risk management SO3 Security roles and 6.1 Internal organization

text: responsibilities

text: 7.1 Prior to employment 7.2 During employment 7.3 Termination and change of employment SO4 Security of third-party 13.2.2 Agreements on information transfer

text: dependencies

text: 13.2.4 Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements 14.2.7 Outsourced development 15.1: Information security in supplier relationships 15.2 Supplier service delivery management SO5 Background checks 7.1 Prior to employment

text: SO6 Security knowledge and 7.1.2 Terms and conditions of employment

text: training

text: 7.2.2 Information security awareness, education and training 7.3 Termination and change of employment SO7 Personnel changes 7.1.2 Terms and conditions of employment 7.2 During employment SO8 Handling violations 7.3 Termination and change of employment

text: SO9 Physical and environmental 11.1 Secure areas

text: security

text: 11.2 Equipment SO10 Security of supplies 11.2 Equipment

text: SO11 Access control to network and 9.1 Business requirements of access control

text: information systems

text: 9.2 User access management 9.3 User responsibilities 9.4 System and application access control 13.1 Network security management SO12 Integrity of network and 12.2 Protection from malware

text: information systems

text: 12.5 Control of operational software 12.6 Technical vulnerability management 13.1 Network security management SO13 Use of encryption 10.1.1 Policy on the use of cryptographic controls

text: SO14 Protection of security critical 10.1.2 Key management

text: data

text: SO15 Operational procedures 12.1 Operational procedures and responsibilities

text: SO16 Change management 12.1 Operational procedures and responsibilities 14.2.2 System change control procedures 14.2.3 Technical review of applications after operating platform changes 14.2.4 Restrictions on changes to software packages 14.2.9 System acceptance testing SO17 Asset management 8.1 Responsibility for assets 8.2 Information classification SO18 Incident management 16.1 Management of information security incidents and procedures improvements

text: SO19 Incident detection capability

text: SO20 Incident reporting and communication

text: SO21 Service continuity strategy 17 Information security aspects of Business Continuity and contingency plans management SO22 Disaster recovery capabilities 12.3 Backup 17 Information security aspects of Business Continuity management SO23 Monitoring and logging 12.4 Logging and monitoring

text: policies

text: SO24 Exercise contingency plans 17 Information security aspects of Business Continuity management

text: SO25 Network and information 14.2.8 System security testing

text: systems testing

text: 14.2.9 System acceptance testing 14.3 Test data 18.2 Information security reviews SO26 Security assessments 12.7 Information systems audit considerations 14.2 Security in development and support processes 18.2 Information security reviews SO27 Compliance monitoring 12.7 Information systems audit considerations 18.1 Compliance with legal and contractual requirements SO28 Threat intelligence 6.1.4 Contact with Special Interest Groups 12.6.1 Management of technical vulnerabilities SO29 Informing users about threats 7.2.2 Information security awareness, education and training

text: 6. REFERENCES

text: Related ENISA papers

text: Document URL

text: Security Supervision under the EECC, https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/supportin 2020 g-the-implementation-of-the-european-electroniccommmunications-code-eecc

text: Article 13

text: a Technical Guideline on https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/technical Security Measures v 2.0 2014 -guideline-on-minimum-securitymeasures/at_download/fullReport

text: Technical guideline on incident https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/technical reporting -guideline-on-incidentreporting/at_download/fullReport

text: Indispensable baseline security https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/indispen requirements for the procurement of sable-baseline-security-requirements-for-thesecure ICT products and services procurement-of-secure-ict-products-andservices/at_download/fullReport

text: Security Guide for ICT Procurement for https://www.enisa.europa.eu/publications/securityelectronic communications service guide-for-ict-procurement providers

text: Relevant EU Legislation

text: Document URL

text: European Electronic Communications https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal- Code content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018L1972& from=E

text: ePrivacy Directive https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2002/58

text: EU Cybersecurity Act https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/881/oj

text: BEREC regulation https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32009R1211 &from=EN

text: International standards and security best practices

text:  ISO 27001 “Information security management systems”  ISO 27002 “Code of practice for information security controls”  ISO 24762 “Guidelines for inf. and communications technology disaster recovery services”  ISO 27005 “Information security risk management”  ISO 27011 “Information security management guidelines for telecommunications”  ISO 22301 “Business continuity management systems”  ITU-T X.1056 (01/2009) “Security incident management guidelines for telecommunications organizations”  ITU-T Recommendation X.1051 (02/2008) “Information security management guidelines for telecommunications organizations based on ISO/IEC 27002”  ITU-T X.800 (1991) “Security architecture for Open Systems Interconnection for CCITT applications”  ITU-T X.805 (10/2003) “Security architecture for systems providing end-to-end communications”

text: -N -EN -722 -20 -04 TP

text: ABOUT ENIS A

text: The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, ENISA, is the Union’s agency dedicated to achieving a high common level of cybersecurity across Europe. Established in 2004 and strengthened by the EU Cybersecurity Act, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity contributes to EU cyber policy, enhances the trustworthiness of ICT products, services and processes with cybersecurity certification schemes, cooperates with Member States and EU bodies, and helps Europe prepare for the cyber challenges of tomorrow. Through knowledge sharing, capacity building and awareness raising, the Agency works together with its key stakeholders to strengthen trust in the connected economy, to boost resilience of the Union’s infrastructure, and, ultimately, to keep Europe’s society and citizens digitally secure. More information about ENISA and its work can be found at www.enisa.europa.eu.

text: ISBN 978-92-9204-457-2 DOI 10.2824/44013