The Ministry of Energy carried out in 2023, with the support of the UNDP project - Accelerating Digital Transformation in the Public Sector, a comprehensive needs assessment process of the energy sector institutions, in order to identify the needs for modernization and strengthening of institutional technological capabilities in the field of digitalization and cybersecurity. As a result of the preliminary assessment, a number of necessary actions have been established in order to increase and modernize the cyber protection of entities in the energy sector of the Republic of Moldova: CyberSec audits, providing entities with modern and reliable software solutions, program products and protection software, which will allow the realization of a concept for the implementation of a single sectoral cyber security shield.

The Ministry of Energy has organized a cybersecurity awareness and training workshop for state-owned enterprises and private-law entities in the energy sector. The aim of this initiative is to modernize and enhance cyber protection of entities in the sector, given the importance of ensuring national security and presenting the plan of activities in the field of cybersecurity, with a focus on the trainings that will start in March this year.

State Secretary Cristina Pereteatcu, responsible for the digitalization of the sector, presented the concept of cyber hygiene education, which aims to ensure that all persons who are involved in the activities of enterprises in the energy sector are aware of the importance of cybersecurity and are compliant by applying and following the rules within it.

During the meeting, representatives of the Intelligence and Security Service presented the mandatory requirements for operators in the energy sector, which manage targets included in the National Critical Infrastructure List. At the same time, the importance of ensuring internal and external cybersecurity audits, developing action plans following the findings and recommendations for remediation in the context of the audit results, implementing internal policies and regulations on information and cyber security for all state and private entities in the energy sector was discussed.

It was also presented the initiative of conducting a Consolidated Audit for at least state-owned enterprises, which will be provided by the Ministry of Energy jointly with the Public Property Agency with the support of development partners. Based on the conclusions and recommendations of this consolidated audit, the technical requirements for modernization of cybersecurity for state-owned enterprises will be developed and thus it will be possible to attract the necessary financial resources to equip state-owned energy sector enterprises with cybersecurity software solutions and program products and hardware equipment of firewall, etc.