Cyber Coalition 2013: NATO’s largest-ever cyber-security exercise held in Estonia

NATO held Cyber Coalition 2013: Largest-ever cyber-exercises to practise averting large-scale, simultaneous cyber attacks on member states and their allies. The drill was hosted by National Defence College training center in Tartu, Estonia.

Objective: Cyber Coalition an exercise with technical components to give its participants a good learning about NATO’s Cyber Defence capabilities, identify areas for improvement within the NATO-wide Cyber Defence community. It also aims to better the capability, cooperation and information sharing between NATO and NATO nations and partners in cyber defence via mode of education, research and development, lessons learnt.

Who all participated in Cyber Coalition 2013?

Representatives of 27 nations and NATO partners from Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Ireland and Finland participated in the drill. New Zealand and the European Union took part as observers. A total of 400 people participated, including government, legal and IT experts. Participants put their skills to the test to show how they would respond to a cyber attack.

About Cyber Defence Exercises

• Objective: Cyber defence exercises allows its participants to learn and test the skills needed to fend off a real attack.
• First exercise: 2008, a joint between Swedish and Estonian universities.
• Second Exercise: Baltic Cyber Shield (2010), organised by Swedish National Defence College (SNDC), various Swedish institutions and the Estonian Cyber Defence League.
• Since 2012, the exercise series is called Locked Shields.

Locked Shields 2013

• Took place in the end on April 2013
• Blue Teams were part of an international coalition forces in unstable country called Boolea.
• Locked Shields (CDx) is a real-time network defence exercise
• CDx has a game-based approach which means that no organisation will play their real-life role and the scenario is fictional.
• Exercise organised by NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence together with its partners.
• Technical support by Cisco, Clarified Networks, Clarified Security and Bytelife.

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2013

Category: Science & Technology Current Affairs