Regional Cable Hubs

Expected Outcome: The Regional cable hubs will contribute to enhancing and consolidating collective situational awareness and capabilities in detection, supporting the development of an operational capacities to ensure the security and resilience of undersea cables. The hubs should act as a central point allowing for broader pooling of data and information relevant for the security environment of the cables, enabling the dissemination of threat information and incident detection on a regional scale and among a diverse set of national actors as designated by each Member States (e.g. National Hubs, CSIRTs.) The Hubs should allow a rapid exchange of information, even if classified among participating authorities in a given hub. To that end, the participating authorities shall set procedural arrangements on cooperation and information sharing. Furthermore, regional cable hubs could also benefit from additional solutions for the surveillance and protection of submarine cables, and the detection of malicious activities. For instance, situational awareness performed through the collection and analysis of in-situ, sea-based sensor data as well as relevant satellite imagery or undersea drones capacities. The Hubs could make use of existing systems which were not developed necessarily for Cable Security, such as the Integrated Maritime Systems, the Common Information Sharing Environment (CISE), the EU Copernicus Space Programme, and the Maritime Surveillance System. (MARSUR). The Hubs should also integrate direct cooperation with private entities, especially cable operators to increase access – in a highly secured framework - to information on ongoing and future threats and voluntary incident reporting. The Hubs should progressively also integrate the defence dimension, as any defence capacities is likely to increase the situational awareness as well as the capacity to respond fast in case of incident against these strategic critical infrastructures. To that end, Member States can integrate in the operations of the Hubs their defence capacities (e.g. navy or surveillance system) and operational command while building on international partnerships. To support the above activities of a Regional Cable Hub, a grant will be available to cover, among others, the preparatory activities for setting up the Regional Cable Hub, its interaction and cooperation between its members and with other stakeholders, as well as the running/operating costs involved, enabling the effective operation of the Regional Cable Hub. The grant could also be used to cover the acquisition of the …