CYBERSÉCURITÉ

Cyber Resilience: Europe Must Turn Its Potential into Collective Power

By Anouck Teiller, Deputy CEO, HarfangLab

The current geopolitical landscape has fundamentally altered our perception of digital risk. Hybrid conflicts, the weaponisation of cyberspace, data breaches, vulnerability exploitation, supply chain attacks, destabilisation campaigns, information manipulation: the threat is no longer theoretical. It is strategic. Information systems and the data they hold have become priority targets like never before, and technological dependency has emerged as a critical vulnerability.

In this climate of mounting uncertainty, cybersecurity is no longer a technical subject reserved for IT departments. It has become a matter of business continuity, economic and political dominance, partner trust, and reputation. The unavailability of a cloud service, the disruption of a payment platform, or the compromise of a critical digital infrastructure can now trigger systemic consequences that almost invariably spill beyond the digital realm and into the physical world.

A European Regulatory Framework Taking Shape

The NIS 2 Directive acknowledged this reality by significantly broadening the scope of essential and important entities subject to enhanced risk management and governance obligations. It enshrines a clear principle: the security of networks and information systems is a prerequisite for economic and societal stability.

For its part, the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) recognises the systemic importance of certain technology providers to the European financial sector. Digital resilience has thus become an explicit regulatory requirement, now shouldered at the board level. Cybersecurity has moved beyond the purely technical sphere and embedded itself at the highest strategic level, finding its place in executive committees. Risk management and cyber threat protection strategies increasingly encompass governance and corporate culture alongside cutting-edge technologies.

Europe: A Wealth of Talent and Innovation

Beyond the regulatory texts, however, one fact is undeniable: Europe is not lacking in talent, engineers, or innovative companies. It has a dynamic cyber ecosystem, home to world-class players in data protection, encryption, identity management, threat detection, and secure cloud infrastructure, including names such as Holm Security, Infodas, Sekoia, OVH, and HarfangLab. Initiatives like the European Defense Platform, bringing together Sekoia, HarfangLab, and Infinigate, or the alliance between HarfangLab and IKARUS, demonstrate Europe's capacity to build trusted, interoperable frameworks at a continental scale.

The challenge is not competence, performance, or innovation. It is fragmentation. Fragmentation of national markets, of industry players, of compliance requirements, and of certification schemes.

Despite the Cybersecurity Act, which laid the groundwork for a European cybersecurity certification framework, companies still contend with heterogeneous national interpretations and divergent validation processes. This dispersion hampers the development of a genuine European single market. For business leaders, the cost is tangible: multiplying audits, increased contractual complexity, and longer time-to-market. At the macroeconomic level, it prevents Europe from converting its technological potential into consolidated industrial strength.

Certifications: A Driver of Excellence in Need of Harmonisation

The challenge is therefore not merely one of sovereignty in the symbolic sense. It is one of consolidation. Consolidating an already solid European ecosystem. Consolidating common standards, notably through European-level certifications that spare companies from navigating duplicative national procedures (BSZ, CSPN, and others). A certification uniformly recognised across all European States would lower barriers to entry, stimulate investment, and foster the emergence of European champions. It would also strengthen the confidence of major public and private clients.

In an era where the availability of critical digital services has become as essential as that of physical infrastructure, Europe must speak with one voice. The infrastructures identified as critical under NIS 2 — energy, transport, healthcare, finance, digital services — now depend on cloud architectures and complex technology supply chains. Their resilience hinges as much on solution quality as on the coherence of the framework in which they operate. Committing to strategic independence and resilience means recognising the value of one's own ecosystem, investing in homegrown technology champions, and removing the obstacles that impede their growth.

Consolidating the European market is an act of trust in its companies and capabilities.

The Building Blocks Are There

Europe has the pieces: innovative companies, talented people, and an ambitious regulatory framework. What it still lacks is collective mobilisation to move beyond national silos and allow the digital single market to function to its full potential. The goal is not to act against other players, but to assert Europe's capacity to secure, operate, and evolve its critical digital infrastructure. It is about valorising our expertise, preserving our technological independence, and maintaining our ability to shape the international digital and economic landscape. And that responsibility falls on every stakeholder: institutions, investors, organisations, and technology providers alike.

European cyber resilience will be the product of strategic consolidation, deliberate harmonisation, and renewed confidence in the value of the European ecosystem. For business leaders, the message is unambiguous: future competitiveness will depend on technology choices aligned with this dynamic. Investing in robust European solutions, supporting regulatory harmonisation, and encouraging market consolidation is not a political stance. It is a strategic decision.