Slovenian edition of the Huawei, EIT Digital and Global Digital Foundation SME cybersecurity guide launched today
Ljubljana, October 27th 2023 – At the annual Slovenian national conference on cyber security, the Slovenian edition of the cybersecurity guide was presented, prepared by Huawei, EIT Digital and the Global Digital Foundation.
There are 25 million small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Europe, employing 100 million people and contributing more than 50 percent of the total GDP growth in Europe. SMEs are the driving force of economic growth and innovation in Slovenia as well, according to the Ministry of Economy, Tourism and Sport, SMEs represent as much as 99.8 percent of all companies in Slovenia, employ almost 70 percent of people and generate 65 percent of the revenues of all companies. Therefore, it is very important that SMEs take appropriate measures to protect business assets and mitigate cyber security attacks. With this in mind, Huawei teamed up with EIT Digital and the Global Digital Foundation to launch a Q&A Guide: Promoting Cybersecurity for SMEs in Europe this March. Today, Huawei presented the Slovenian edition of the guide at the conference titled "How to deal with current threats in cyber space?", organized by the Cyber Security Section of the Association for Informatics and Telecommunications of the Chamber of Commerce of Slovenia and the ICT horizontal network.
Tony Jin, Huawei's vice president for Europe, said “this guide aims to give practical advice to SMEs on measures that can be taken to implement higher levels of cybersecurity within their company structures. The guide explains the different natures of cyber attacks. The cyber security of SMEs is crucial for securing the supply chain in Europe. According to the European Union Agency for Cyber Security (ENISA), in 2022 attacks on the supply chain represented as much as 17 percent of all cyber attacks in Europe, while in 2021 they accounted for only one percent. Promoting higher standards of cybersecurity for SMEs is a key priority for the European Union and for governments across Europe. This guide is supporting EU policy priorities to improve cybersecurity standards for SMEs in Europe and also contributes to the work activities of the European Year of Skills 2023 due to the cybersecurity skills shortage in Europe."
Vencel Cserhati, Head of Cyber Security and Privacy Protection Huawei Technologies Hungary and the Adriatic Region, who presented the guide at the event, said: "The key objective of this guide is to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises in Slovenia can implement more comprehensive cyber security strategies: to enhance better access control procedures such as improving password management? How to improve vulnerability management within SME product lines? How is data backed up? The importance of maintaining an incident and disaster recovery plan. How can firewalls improve cybersecurity for SMEs?” He added that it is recommended that companies also have a plan for communicating with stakeholders in the event of a cybersecurity incident.
“This guide also explains to SMEs where useful information in both a European and in a Slovenian context can be found on how to improve cybersecurity systems. ENISA, Europol, OECD and the World Economic Forum (WEF) have all produced a number of important information links on how SMEs can mitigate against cybersecurity risk. This guide also includes a number of links in Slovenia where Slovenian SMEs can go to get advice on how to enhance cybersecurity within their respective companies,” added Cserhati.
The National Cyber Security Conference rounded off October as the European Cyber Security Month, organized by ENISA, the Commission and the EU Member States. Both the latter and other organizations and companies are educating and raising awareness about this topic even more intensively this month. Many examples of good practices were presented at the conference, and Huawei's Slovenian translation of the Q&A Guide: Promoting Cybersecurity for SMEs in Europe was well received, as all conference participants agreed that it is necessary to focus all efforts on improving this area.
