NATO progresses multinational cyber defence effort

A workshop, held on 19 September at the NATO C3 Agency in Brussels, agreed a number of areas in which nations are considering to work together to share the costs of cutting-edge research and development, as well as the development of new capabilities.

Under the project, nations will work to pool their efforts in the areas of cyber defence information sharing and cyber situational awareness, with a number of other nations expressing interest in joining the effort.

Sharing the burden of national capability development

“By pooling efforts together, we are expecting cost-savings to nations in the range of roughly 15-20% in cyber capabilities”, said Mr. Georges D’hollander, NC3A General Manager, “Equally, by developing capabilities together we know that nations will be able to share expertise and knowledge.”

Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is the lead driver for multinational projects in the Alliance.

“Allied Command Transformation’s vision for this initiative is to bring the NATO and national capability development activities together, to work collaboratively, to share the results", said General Jaap Willemse, from ACT, “So the challenge to nations is: Can we, today and over the next months – work together to improve everybody’s cyber defence for the future?”

Finally, national capability development will ultimately strengthen Alliance defences.

“In the spirit of the Secretary General’s call for “smart defence” through multinational efforts, the aim is to lower the cost of and facilitate national capability development,” said Suleyman Anil, from the NATO HQ Emerging Security Challenges Division, “In the interconnected world of cyber space, we are only as strong as the weakest link.”

For more details on the intiative, please see the project leaflet.