The Czech Republic hosted a NATO exercise from April 7 to 11 to strengthen the alliance’s Virtual Cyber Incident Support Capability, or VCISC, designed as a clearing house for mutual allied assistance in cyberattacks. Government and national agencies from 20 allies participated in the exercise on coordinated action against malicious cyber activities targeting critical national infrastructures.
The exercise organizer, Czechia’s National Cyber and Information Security Agency, said that its cyber experts and counterparts from Slovenia and Sweden contributed to designing a simulated cyberattack. The scenario involved several NATO allies tackling significant cyber incidents and requesting support through VCISC.
National Cybersecurity Support
The Czech cybersecurity agency noted that the five-day exercise allowed NATO allies to check the capability of their national processes to tap the VCISC mechanism and test overall NATO cooperation in multiple and widespread cyber incidents.
NATO launched VCISC during its 2023 Vilnius Summit to help link and coordinate assistance among member countries on cybersecurity matters, including malware analysis, digital forensics and cyberthreat intelligence. Joining VCISC activities is voluntary among NATO members, and the program participants use national assets.
In another recent cybersecurity exercise, the NATO Communications and Information Agency supported the first cyber readiness test at Exercise Dynamic Mariner 25. During the two-week event, which ended in early April, NCIA cyber experts and NATO’s Rapid Reaction Team defended exercise networks against simulated cyber threats in real time.
Cybersecurity Collaboration
Establishment of a new cyber center based in Mons, Belgium, called the NATO Integrated Cyber Defense Centre, is also underway to enhance the military alliance’s cyberthreat response in collaboration with industry. NCIA has also contracted IBM to strengthen the cyber resilience of the alliance’s enterprise networks. Another collaboration emerged in February, with artificial intelligence firm Dataminr offering to assist NATO in using AI to enhance the security of the alliance’s networks and improve its real-time cyber domain awareness capabilities.