Germany to set up new cybersecurity unit
Germany will soon be introducing its own version of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency after the coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel approved a new cyber unit, to be headed jointly by the Defense and Interior ministries.
Published: September 3, 2018, 8:25 am
A budget of €200 million between 2019 and 2022, will be made available to the Agency for Innovation in Cybersecurity with around 100 employees, in order to bolster the country’s cybersecurity posture.
The German parliament, the Bundestag, will debate the proposal in the upcoming months, Defence News reported. Once funding is approved, the unit will be in operation as from next year.
The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military, served as a model in creating the German unit, but the American agency’s funding and personnel commitment is much larger.
The creation of the unit signals a political commitment to cyberspace defense and security. According to Reuters, it will end Germany’s reliance on digital technologies from the United States and China.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told reporters the country aims at becoming a top player in cybersecurity to enhance European security and independence. The new agency will be an offensive cyber operation. “It is our joint goal for Germany to take a leading role in cybersecurity on an international level,” Seehofer told the media at a press conference jointly held with Von der Leyen.
“As a federal government, we cannot stand idly by when the use of sensitive technology with high-security relevance are controlled by other governments. We must secure and expand such key technologies of our digital infrastructure,” Seehofer said alluding to the massive American NSA spy network and US Patriot Act which gave the US administration broad powers to compel companies to provide data.
One of the unit’s goals will be to fast track the acquisition cycle for cyber technology in order to counter sophisticated attacks by hackers.
“The existing government processes pertaining to research are too slow,” said Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. “We have to be at least as quick and as well equipped as the perpetrators.”
Venture capital will be funding promising research, said von der Leyen, but it would also require “courage” to absorb financial losses in cases where ideas fail.
The Greens opposed the project. “This agency wouldn’t increase our information technology security, but further endanger it,” Greens lawmaker Konstantin von Notz complained.
He argued that it would undermine Germany’s diplomatic efforts to limit the use of cyberweapons internationally. “As a state based on the rule of law, we can only lose a cyber politics arms race with states like China, North Korea or Russia.”
According to Von Notz, “scarce resources” should be used to improve a defensive cyber posture.
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