The Legal Regulation of Cybersecurity

Cybercrime has become a global phenomenon, which is causing more harm to individual citizens, organizations, society and the state. Most countries in the world compare cybercrime with offences such as terrorism and drug trafficking due to its risks and profitability. Cybersecurity is the central category to fight cybercrime in cyberspace. Therefore, the strategic legal regulation of cybersecurity is one of the most relevant problems in EU, including Lithuania. So far cybersecurity legal regulation analysis in scientific literature has been rather limited. The European Commission, together with the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, has published a cybersecurity strategy alongside a Commission proposed directive on network and information security (NIS). The cybersecurity strategy – “An Open, Safe and Secure Cyberspace” - represents the EU’s comprehensive vision on how best to prevent and respond to cyber disruptions and attacks. The purpose of its is to further European values of freedom and democracy and ensure the digital economy can safely grow. Specific actions are aimed at enhancing cyber resilience of information systems, reducing cybercrime and strengthening EU international cyber-security policy and cyber defence. The main goal of the paper is to analyze and compare the EU cybersecurity strategy and experience of several foreign countries with the strategic legal regulation of cybersecurity in Lithuania. The article consists of four parts. The first part dealt with the EU cybersecurity strategy. The second part of the article examines the comparative aspect of foreign cybersecurity strategic legal regulation. The third part deals with attempts in Lithuania to draft cybersecurity law and the holistic approach of cybersecurity legal regulation. The fourth part examines Lithuanian cybersecurity strategy and comments on the main probleas related with the strategy. Several different approaches have been used in the research. The author have used a comparative method to investigate the EU cybersecurity strategy as well a, Lithuanian and foreign situations. The empirical analysis of legal documents was used to determine the legal regulation of the cybersecurity in Lithuania. In addition, Legal acts of the Republic of Lithuania have been analyzed. Having analyzed the official documents, the method allows identifying and describing the relationship between the valid legal regulations accurately. Using literature resources, the author has used the deductive method which allows drawing sufficiently reliable conclusions