WELCOME TO ALLIED COMMAND TRANSFORMATION

NATO's Strategic Warfare Development Command

Enhancing NATO’s Collective Cyber Resilience

December 12, 2024

TALLINN, Estonia – NATO has concluded its largest annual cyber defence exercise, Cyber Coalition 2024, with almost 200 participants on-site at the Estonian Cyber Range and more than 1,300 cyber defenders from NATO Allies and Partners. 

CYBERSPACE: DETERRENCE AND DEFENCE 

Cyber Coalition, one of the world’s largest cyber defence exercises, is designed by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation to strengthen NATO, its Allies, and partners’ ability to protect their networks and operate in cyberspace. This annual event, which has been a staple of NATO’s planning since 2008, is the platform to test and exchange on NATO’s cyber defence.  

During the exercise, Allied Command Transformation – in collaboration with Allied Command Operations and Joint Force Command Naples, with industry support – led an experimentation campaign on Cyberspace Situational Awareness. Based on a realistic operational plan and using a platform demonstrator, the experiment correlated mission, threat, and network information to generate Cyberspace Situational Awareness dashboards. The outcomes, based on feedback received from the operational community  are already informing  the capability procurement process, as well as the processes that operational commands can adopt to support evaluating cyber risks impact over the mission. 

 This is significant. It allows Allied Command Transformation to initiate the development of the NATO Cyberspace Situational Awareness capability that will provide a crucial cognitive advantage for the Alliance and Allies operating in cyberspace.

The Alliance, and all Allies, are working very hard to make sure when it comes to sabotage, cyber-attacks, energy blackmail, that we take all the measures necessary to counter that. It’s first of all the Allies doing that, and then NATO as a collective, making sure that we gather all the information, that we have the necessary agencies in place.

  • Mr Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, at the Foreign Ministerials Press Conference, December 4th, 2024 

KEY TAKEAWAYS 

Cyberspace is a constantly contested domain, with NATO and its Allies facing a daily barrage of cyber threats—ranging from low-level attacks to highly sophisticated incidents. 

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has highlighted, once again, the need to understand the battlespace from a cyberspace perspective, assessing the impact of cyber events on military operations to inform Commanders’ decision-making. 

NATO takes security threats across all domains—cyber, maritime, land, air, and space—very seriously and is firmly committed to defending its allies in cyberspace. The Alliance’s cyber policy is defensive and in alignment with international obligations. NATO has made it clear that a serious cyberattack, or the cumulative impact of sustained malicious cyber activities, could invoke Article 5—the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty. 

Cyber Coalition brings together NATO commands, allies, and partners to strengthen the Alliance’s ability to deter, defend against, and respond to cyber threats. Through collaborative exercises and joint cyberspace operations, Cyber Coalition not only supports NATO’s core tasks but also contributes to its ongoing transformation efforts.