Establishing Cross-border SOCs

2026-07-22

The proposal aims to deliver ATHENA, a europeAn THreat intelligence, rEspoNse and prepAredness platform, encompassing the national cybersecurity authorities of Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, and Malta. ATHENA will adopt a Cyber Security Operations Centers (CSOCs) Blueprint for cross border- cross-organizational, and cross-functional cooperation, collaboration, and coordination, and creating a model Coordinated Response Cluster for EU member states and other eligible entities. More precisely, ATHENA’s Cross-border platform will offer shared Situational Awareness with AI-assisted CTI extraction & analytics. This will enable and enhance the Prediction, Prevention, Detection & Response capabilities of member states against existing and new cyber-attacks. ATHENA will also provide the feature of Coordinated Response among the consortium, via proactive and reactive Security Automation, Orchestration, and Response. Furthermore, in order to enhance joint-Preparedness among consortium member states (MS), ATHENA’s Cybersecurity Operations Training (COT) Subsystem will provide realistic scenarios Cyber Range (CR) training and other trainings such as tabletop exercises. In addition, ATHENA will support and contribute timely & actionable Information between National Authorities of consortium MS entrusted with Cybersecurity, Operators of Essential Services (OES) & relevant EU actors & bodies, leveraging interoperable and standardized alerting and reporting mechanisms and processes. The objectives of the proposal will focus on providing Shared Situational Awareness amongst MS, increasing capacity for Coordinated Incident Response, facilitating the creation of Joint Preparedness of MS, providing timely and actionable Information Exchange, Alerting & Reporting of MS, working towards the validation, exploitation & sustainability of the platform, and supporting the overall European vision for cross-border collaboration & coordination to respond to cybersecurity threats.

Cyprus

2025-10-15