INCIDENT vs. CYBERATTACK – based on current EU provisions
Publication date: February 2, 2026
According to an analysis by lawyers from KG LEGAL KIELTYKA GLADKOWSKI, legal concepts such as incident and cyberattack are key elements in the EU cybersecurity and data protection law ecosystem. The fragmentation of cybersecurity law into various sectoral legal acts necessitates a comprehensive analysis of the coherence of all the legal acts comprising this ecosystem. This article demonstrates that the legal layer of cybersecurity in an incident is a highly sensitive issue from the perspective of the responsibility to protect, and therefore, responsible entities should examine the differences in the legal scope of application of individual acts. These concepts are intuitively understood but in legal practice are only superficially identical and lead to different regulatory obligations. The following summary is original and creative and can be used by entities to properly analyze their obligations under current EU law.

