The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) will today be running a series of simulations to test European nations’ preparedness for cyber attacks and threats to critical national infrastructure.

In total more than 200 different organizations and 400 cyber-security professionals will take part in the Cyber Europe 2014 simulation involving 29 different countries. As in previous years, the simulation today calls upon participants to attempt to mitigate and resolve highly technical cyber-security attacks, including “scenarios which could impact the confidentiality, integrity or availability of sensitive information or critical infrastructures”.

While this is the third such test (the first was in 2010 and the second in 2012), ENISA said that this year the challenge had “grown considerably in scope, scale and complexity”. Dealing with threats to national infrastructure isn’t purely a technological challenge though; following today’s test, the second phase (to take place later in the year) will focus on the tactical response to threats, and the third phases will consider the strategic and political responses.

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