Europe
Europe’s telecom resilience test: who is ready for the next hybrid crisis?
Europe’s telecom networks have become a strategic pillar of collective security. An assessment based on EU and NATO resilience criteria reveals which countries are best prepared to keep communications running during cyberattacks, sabotage and major disruptions.
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- Ramón Cuerda Riva
- Former military officer and security expert.
- Published on
16 July 2026 at 07:10
Europe is not an island, our infrastructures are increasingly connected and regulated under the same patterns. In the case of telecommunications, it is essential that the entireEuropean framework has a level of resilience that allows us to respond to catastrophes and hybrid threats. In a Europe where everything is connected, we depend closely on each other to ensure our global security.
To evaluate which countries in our environment are in better conditions and which are worse in telephone resilience and cybersecurity, the European Union and strategic consultancies measure three key variables: the commercial health of the sector, the deployment of ultra-fast networks (fiber/5G), and protection against cyberattacks.
Data from reports such as the EU Digital Decade Index and the ITU Global Cybersecurity Index leave us with a very divided European map.
On one side, there are the advanced students, those who have done their homework best. These are the leading countries that combine excellent physical infrastructure (high capillarity of fiber optics) with very strict regulations and high investment in cyber defense.
Among these, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) are the undisputed benchmarks of the EU and NATO. Denmark and Finland have the highest global score in cybersecurity (100/100), with hyper-digitalized populations and telephone networks natively integrated with their national defense systems and resilience to energy cuts.
Likewise, theUnited Kingdom, although not part of the EU, as a central piece of NATO in Europe, is among the best prepared. Its telephone contingency systems against electromagnetic and hybrid attacks are among the most advanced in the world.
For its part, the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) stands out in the physical part. Spain ranks second in the EU in fixed connectivity (thanks to more than 94% of the country having access to fiber optics to the home) and an excellent score in cybersecurity (99.74/100). And to be clear, it is all due to private initiative and the commercial war to capture the market, not public initiatives. Portugal follows closely with very well-protected critical infrastructures, so both are much better prepared at the network level than the great central European powers.
The laggards on this list, that is, the worst in the class or at greater risk against threats,are not necessarily the countries with fewer re in the modernization of their infrastructures
Germanyand Italyare the great European paradox. Despite their GDP, their telecommunications markets are considered “out of shape” according to strategic sector reports. Both have taken a long time to deploy fiber optics (they depended excessively on old copper lines), which saturates and weakens the resilience of their mobile and data networks in the face of critical incidents.
Here we also find Greeceand Hungary, countries within the EU, “which show more structural weaknesses in their telecommunications networks,”as defined in the mentioned reports. Although they are trying to improve against the clock due to the demands of the NIS2 directive, their networks suffer from less investment in redundancy (alternative routes so that the internet does not go down if a main cable is cut).
Bulgariaand Romania, “are at the European tail in terms of overall compliance with the Digital Decade objectives of secure connectivity and resilience of the technological supply chain. Furthermore, being on NATO’s eastern flank, they are geographically very exposed to hybrid warfare, which raises their real risk level against the capabilities they have installed.”
The 7 pillars of the resilience of the Telecommunications sector
Although NATO broadly defines the Seven Basic Resilience Requirements for the entire civil society (energy, transport, health, etc.), both the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union have conceptually adapted these 7 pillars applied specifically and exclusively to the Telecommunications sector.
For a telephone or internet network to be considered “resilient” against hybrid threats, blackouts, or military attacks, it must comply with these 7 sectoral principles:
1. Diversity of routes and physical redundancy
No network should have a “Single Point of Failure”. If a main fiber optic cable is cut due to sabotage or construction, data traffic must automatically be divertedoticing the drop
2. Backup power resilience
It consists of ensuring that mobile phone antennas and central data nodes continue to function when the national power grid goes down.
3. Clean supply chain (Sovereignty and Risk Provider Veto)
Ensure that the hardware and software equipment that make up the network do not have “backdoors” that can be exploited by hostile powers in case of geopolitical conflict.
4. Prioritization of emergency traffic and military use (QoS – Quality of Service)
In a situation of chaos or extreme saturation (when everyone tries to call at the same time), the civil network must be able to reserve bandwidth on a priority basis for life-saving services.
5. Resistance to cyberattacks and electronic warfare (Hardening)
Protect telecom operating systems against invasive malware, ransomware, or massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyberattacks orchestrated by hostile states.
6. Rapid recovery capability and business continuity (MTTR – Mean Time to Recover)
Assume that sooner or later, the network will break or suffer serious damage, and measure the speed at which the operator is able to recover.
7. Physical protection of critical infrastructure
Resilience is not only digital, it is also human and concrete. Protect data centers, central telephone antennas, and submarine cables against acts of sabotage, vandalism, drones, or direct physical attacks.
The standard is militarized high-security perimeters at key nodes, underground or bunkerized data centers, and marine patrol or satellite surveillance to protect submarine fiber lines.
In the Europe of interconnected networks, security is no longer measured only by the ability to face a catastrophe or stop a cyberattack, but by maintaining communications when everything else starts to fall.
Europe is not an island, our infrastructures are increasingly connected and regulated under the same patterns. In the case of telecommunications, it is essential that the entireEuropean framework has a level of resilience that allows us to respond to catastrophes and hybrid threats. In a Europe where everything is connected, we depend closely on each other to ensure our global security.
To evaluate which countries in our environment are in better conditions and which are worse in telephone resilience and cybersecurity, the European Union and strategic consultancies measure three key variables: the commercial health of the sector, the deployment of ultra-fast networks (fiber/5G), and protection against cyberattacks.
Data from reports such as the EU Digital Decade Index and the ITU Global Cybersecurity Index leave us with a very divided European map.
On one side, there are the advanced students, those who have done their homework best. These are the leading countries that combine excellent physical infrastructure (high capillarity of fiber optics) with very strict regulations and high investment in cyber defense.
Among these, the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden) are the undisputed benchmarks of the EU and NATO. Denmark and Finland have the highest global score in cybersecurity (100/100), with hyper-digitalized populations and telephone networks natively integrated with their national defense systems and resilience to energy cuts.
Likewise, theUnited Kingdom, although not part of the EU, as a central piece of NATO in Europe, is among the best prepared. Its telephone contingency systems against electromagnetic and hybrid attacks are among the most advanced in the world.
For its part, the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) stands out in the physical part. Spain ranks second in the EU in fixed connectivity (thanks to more than 94% of the country having access to fiber optics to the home) and an excellent score in cybersecurity (99.74/100). And to be clear, it is all due to private initiative and the commercial war to capture the market, not public initiatives. Portugal follows closely with very well-protected critical infrastructures, so both are much better prepared at the network level than the great central European powers.
The laggards on this list, that is, the worst in the class or at greater risk against threats,are not necessarily the countries with fewer re in the modernization of their infrastructures
Germanyand Italyare the great European paradox. Despite their GDP, their telecommunications markets are considered “out of shape” according to strategic sector reports. Both have taken a long time to deploy fiber optics (they depended excessively on old copper lines), which saturates and weakens the resilience of their mobile and data networks in the face of critical incidents.
Here we also find Greeceand Hungary, countries within the EU, “which show more structural weaknesses in their telecommunications networks,”as defined in the mentioned reports. Although they are trying to improve against the clock due to the demands of the NIS2 directive, their networks suffer from less investment in redundancy (alternative routes so that the internet does not go down if a main cable is cut).
Bulgariaand Romania, “are at the European tail in terms of overall compliance with the Digital Decade objectives of secure connectivity and resilience of the technological supply chain. Furthermore, being on NATO’s eastern flank, they are geographically very exposed to hybrid warfare, which raises their real risk level against the capabilities they have installed.”
The 7 pillars of the resilience of the Telecommunications sector
Although NATO broadly defines the Seven Basic Resilience Requirements for the entire civil society (energy, transport, health, etc.), both the Atlantic Alliance and the European Union have conceptually adapted these 7 pillars applied specifically and exclusively to the Telecommunications sector.
For a telephone or internet network to be considered “resilient” against hybrid threats, blackouts, or military attacks, it must comply with these 7 sectoral principles:
1. Diversity of routes and physical redundancy
No network should have a “Single Point of Failure”. If a main fiber optic cable is cut due to sabotage or construction, data traffic must automatically be divertedoticing the drop
2. Backup power resilience
It consists of ensuring that mobile phone antennas and central data nodes continue to function when the national power grid goes down.
3. Clean supply chain (Sovereignty and Risk Provider Veto)
Ensure that the hardware and software equipment that make up the network do not have “backdoors” that can be exploited by hostile powers in case of geopolitical conflict.
4. Prioritization of emergency traffic and military use (QoS – Quality of Service)
In a situation of chaos or extreme saturation (when everyone tries to call at the same time), the civil network must be able to reserve bandwidth on a priority basis for life-saving services.
5. Resistance to cyberattacks and electronic warfare (Hardening)
Protect telecom operating systems against invasive malware, ransomware, or massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyberattacks orchestrated by hostile states.
6. Rapid recovery capability and business continuity (MTTR – Mean Time to Recover)
Assume that sooner or later, the network will break or suffer serious damage, and measure the speed at which the operator is able to recover.
7. Physical protection of critical infrastructure
Resilience is not only digital, it is also human and concrete. Protect data centers, central telephone antennas, and submarine cables against acts of sabotage, vandalism, drones, or direct physical attacks.
The standard is militarized high-security perimeters at key nodes, underground or bunkerized data centers, and marine patrol or satellite surveillance to protect submarine fiber lines.
In the Europe of interconnected networks, security is no longer measured only by the ability to face a catastrophe or stop a cyberattack, but by maintaining communications when everything else starts to fall.
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