Lt. Gen. Tom Copinger-Symes, deputy commander of the U.K. Strategic Command, discussed the importance of harnessing the power of the latest digital technologies to strengthen NATO’s cyber defense at Cybersec Summit 2023.
The military alliance has been facing cyber threats, most recently from a hacktivist group, SiegedSec, which claimed that it breached NATO’s websites and stole 3,000 files and 9 GB of data, according to The Register.
According to Ian West, head of the NATO Cyber Security Centre, the organization is constantly improving its cyber defenses along with advances in the digital realm. “Many of us have known for a long time that it is very unlikely that any conflict in the future will not contain cyberattacks,” he said in an August interview.
During Cybersec Summit 2023, Strategic Command, through Copinger-Symes, expressed its commitment to supporting NATO’s cyber posture amid the increasing digital threats from adversarial nations and cybercriminals by adopting new technologies that increase deterrence in the cyber and electromagnetic domain.
The conference, held Wednesday in Krakow, Poland, was a side event to the 13th Cyber Commanders Forum hosted by the Polish Cyber Defense Forces Component Command. Copinger-Symes also spoke at that forum to discuss the role of cloud solutions in a modern armed forces.