РНБОУ National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine

The NCSCC is working on improving public communications procedures when responding to large-scale cyberattacks

On January 26, 2023, the National Cybersecurity Coordination Center at the NSDC of Ukraine, with the support of the USAID Project "Cyber Security of Critical Infrastructure", held a round table meeting on the topic "National response plan to emergency (crisis) situations in cyberspace: practical aspects of effective public communication about cyber incidents."

The meeting was attended by communication managers and cyber security specialists of all the main subjects of cyber security, the Center for Combating Disinformation, the Ministry of Health, the National Health Service of Ukraine, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy and the State Service of Ukraine for Emergency Situations, enterprises of critical infrastructure.

The purpose of the event is to form a common understanding by all parties of the importance of coordinating actions and mutual coordination of messages for society about detected incidents and crisis phenomena in cyberspace.

"We continue to work on the development of the National Cyber Incident Response Plan, and public communications is an important part of it. After all, when informing about cyber incidents, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of cyberspace and maintain a balance in disclosing information to reassure the public, and, at the same time, not disseminating information that may harm the investigation processes, the consequences of eliminating the cyber incident, or the reputation of the organizations with which the cyber incident occurred," Head of the NCSCC Support Service of the NSDC Staff Serhiy Prokopenko said.

Serhiy Prokopenko also noted that nowadays, during the war, it is important to take into account the enemy's use of information and psychological operations, during which cyber incidents are accompanied by allegations about their fake consequences. Therefore, according to him, it is necessary to develop a joint communication strategy, providing for a mechanism for exchanging information between all participants in a cyber incident, involving management and technical specialists, limits of authority and time frames.

The participants of the round table discussed the current state of informing society about crisis phenomena in cyberspace and about individual cyber incidents. Based on the results of the discussion, proposals were made to improve the processes of informing society about cyber incidents and filling out the Response Plan.