During the third edition of the Cybersecurity Forum in Energy, organized by Distribuție Energie Electrică România (DEER) in Cluj-Napoca, Cristian Bușoi, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Energy, announced that the establishment of the Cyber Security Incident Response Center in Energy (CRISCE) is “in the interministerial regulatory process” and is currently undergoing technical approval by the Ministry of Labor.
“This cyber incident response center in the energy sector will be extremely relevant. But beyond this center, which will be of significant importance, the strict and timely implementation of European legislation is extremely important and, perhaps more importantly than anything else, is the need to raise awareness that we must invest in resilience and cybersecurity in order to protect our critical entities,” said Cristian Bușoi.
He explained that one of the challenges for the center’s operationalization is attracting and retaining IT specialists in the public sector, given that the current salary level is uncompetitive. “When the center becomes operational, we will have to find a solution related to salaries, because, obviously, some very good IT specialists, with the uncompetitive salaries we have today in the public system… this is also a discussion point.”
Former chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry and Energy (2019–2024), Bușoi recalled that the NIS2 Directive and legislation on the resilience of critical entities introduce clear obligations to protect strategic infrastructure, and Romania must quickly align its national rules. “The new legislation on gas and hydrogen networks introduces very clear obligations to protect these entities from a cyber perspective,” he said, adding that “we are in a hybrid war” in which cyber-attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and frequent.
The official also drew attention to the growing risk of dependence on equipment and technologies produced outside the European Union: “We have inverters, smart devices that can be programmed remotely, and even though we have no evidence so far that we have been influenced or attacked, I think we need to ask ourselves an important question.”
In conclusion, Cristian Bușoi emphasized that all major investments in energy—from projects in the Black Sea and modular reactors in Doicești to the expansion of distribution networks—must include a robust cybersecurity component. “These investments must include an extremely robust component of cyber resilience and protection against cyber-attacks,” he said, calling for close collaboration between energy companies and the IT industry so that Romania can guarantee a secure energy supply “in an increasingly digitized world that is vulnerable to attacks.”
Energynomics was a media partner for the Cybersecurity Forum in Energy, organized by Distribuție Energie Electrică România (DEER) in Cluj-Napoca.