A structural design for a pan-European early warning system for critical infrastructures

The protection of critical infrastructures increasingly demands solutions across interdependent infrastructures all over Europe supporting incident detection and management. This necessitates cooperation of privately owned infrastructure operators and public bodies between sectors and across borders. The ECOSSIAN project, funded by the EU under the 7th framework program for research and development, develops a prototype of such a holistic system based on use cases from the sectors energy, transportation, and finance. The system uses a multi-tiered architecture and incorporates advanced technologies, including fast data aggregation, situational visualization, planning and decision support, and flexible information sharing and coordination support networks. The technical solutions will be complemented by an organizational concept, corresponding rules and regulations, as well as factors of societal perception and appreciation. This positional paper gives an overview of the ECOSSIAN concept and architecture.