Whilst in Italy tremendous protests rise against the construction of the pipeline TAP (which has to transport gas from the Balkanic peninsula to Belpaese), for environmental and safety reason, the European Union is facing a big problem related to energy: the cyber security.
The protection in a digitalized industry, threaten by crackers, is mainly necessary for the energetic sector, where dangerous material (gas, oil) are transported often using the international networks, as stated in a report by Energy Expert Cyber Security System Platform, dated February 2017.
A digital single market
A digital single market (DSM) strategy would be necessary, with two recommendations: 1) a contractual public-private strategy on cyber security; 2) a definition on missing technological standards, related to the use of big data, the security, the cloud computing and the Internet of things.
Nevertheless, the different energetic choices of all the European countries make hard identifying an international framework. Shale gas, which a few years ago has been considered the new energetic source of the millennium, is not accepted in all country, because of environmental fears and uncertain rights of exploiting the subsoil. Gas And Oil remain the main sources in the continent.
A big subject to safeguard
The need for an increasing interdependence among market players is clear in gas and oil sub-sector. Pipelines networks are mainly national (till now) because their management affected national security strategies, and the decisions on it are taken with a "top-down approaches that establish national objective and priorities", states the quoted report.
It is not difficult to understand why. Only a big subject can safeguard exploitation and transport of dangerous material, knowing the problems in the different hubs and possessing information and power to prevent or solve them. However, in a Union pretending to be interdependent in every sector, it should be international, better than a national one.
Cyber security for wind power
Less dangerous are renewables sources. Yet, also in these cases, the lack of the network is an obstacle. Spain produced a surplus of the wind and the solar energy, but connections are not so advanced in Spain and France to sell it to Germany, former president of Italian oil company ENI Giuseppe Recchi tells in his 2014 book "Nuove energie. Le sfide per lo sviluppo dell'Occidente".
However, wind farms are exposed to cyber attacks too and they need to reinforce security system, secretary of ANEV (Italian wind energy association) Davide Astasio Garcia stated on the 14th of March, looking for a smart solution for developing the sub-sector and increasing the cooperation between operators.
