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 infrastructures, tools and services needed to build-up the Regional Cable Hub but also to equip it with the necessary capacities to enhance the security and resilience of undersea cables, such as detection capacities.

These actions aim at creating or strengthening Regional Cable Hubs, which occupy a central role in ensuring the Security and resilience of strategic and critical infrastructures, providers of essential services such as global connectivity and power supply. As previously noted, Regional Cable Hubs will have a crucial operative role in ensuring the security of undersea cables in the Union and will handle sensitive information.

Actions may address:

1. the establishment of new Regional Cable Hubs
2. the expansion to new Member States of existing Regional Cable Hubs projects funded under previous calls of this Topic
3. the capability upgrade (extension of scope (e.g. defence aspect), application of new technologies enabling more predictive, automated, interoperable and operationally actionable situational awareness)

Pursuant to Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2021/694, participation to the calls funded under this topic will be therefore subject to the restrictions of Article 12(5), as specified in Appendix 3 of this Work Programme.

Objective:

As part of the EU Action Plan on Cable Security, it was announced that the Commission, together with voluntary Member States, will work on Cable Integrated Surveillance Mechanisms per sea basin (‘Regional Cable Hubs’) to enhance the detection capacity against threats to undersea cables as they are critical infrastructure.

Taking into account the fact that these cables are covered by the scope of NIS2 Directive that follows an all-hazards approach, it is crucial to protect their physical environment from events such as malicious acts, including cuts as integral part of the cable cybersecurity measures.

Objectives

The objective is to support the progressive establishment of Regional Cable hubs, one per sea basins of the EU, whose role will be to concretely enhance threats detection and operational security around these strategic infrastructures.

This action is therefore aimed at supporting the set-up of processes, tools and services for detection and analysis of emerging threats, to establish a near real time situational awareness to protect the undersea cables. It includes the capacity to aggregate data and security information from all available sources (including established systems such as the Integrated Maritime System, or CISE, or National Cyber Hubs) and analyse them in an automated way. The action will support also the establishment of a reporting incident function and a procedure for information sharing between relevant national authorities.

Regional Cable Hubs should be established as cooperative cross-border structures. Each Hub should involve a consortium of authorities from at least two Member States concerned by the relevant sea basin, including competent public authorities such as ministries, agencies or other public entities responsible for cable security, maritime security, resilience, or the protection of critical infrastructure. The involvement of a larger number of Member States is preferable. Other relevant public or private partners may also participate in the consortium to support the Hub’s technical and operational implementation.

Additionally, structured partnership with private sector to enhance the voluntary information sharing for cable security as well as the potential and progressive integration of the relevant defence dimension capacities – in a dual use approach – could be considered in the action.

Should the participating Member States so decide, the regional cable hubs could coordinate the deployment and activation of modular repair equipment across a sea basin. Finally, the scope could also cover the acquisition of additional capacities, equipment, tools, instruments or services useful for the enhancing the resilience and security of undersea cables.