Cyber Coalition 22, one of the world’s largest cyber defence exercise, starts on Monday, November 28th, 2022 and will run until December 2nd.
The aim is to enhance NATO, Allies and partners’ ability to defend their networks and operate together in cyberspace. During the exercise, some 1,000 cyber defenders from 26 Allies, Finland, Georgia, Ireland, Japan, Sweden and Switzerland, the European Union, as well as participants from industry and academia will train to tackle real-life cyber challenges such as cyber-attacks on power grids, programmes and NATO and Allied assets while in operations.
Cyber Coalition 22 provides a unique platform for collaboration, experience-sharing, best practices and experimentation. By working together, the individual participants, as well as their organisations, nations and NATO, enhance their cyber resilience. Cyber Coalition has been a long-planned annual NATO exercise since 2008.
The exercise is planned and conducted by NATO’s Allied Command Transformation under the governance of the Military Committee, bringing together a cyber coalition of NATO Bodies, NATO Allies, and Partners to strengthen the Alliance ability to deter, defend against, and counter threats in and through cyberspace in support of NATO’s core tasks by exercising collaboration and cyberspace operations, and providing input to NATO transformation.
Cyber Coalition 22 is executed through the Estonian Cyber Security Exercises and Training Centre, Tallinn’s latest cyber range supporting NATO Allies and Partners. Training audience and local trainers participate from their respective Nations and entities through virtual networks, and a small exercise control group assembles in Estonia to execute the exercise.
Cyber Coalition 22 is a perfect venue for cyberspace experimentation, and supporting NATO’s capability development and transformation in the cyber domain.
Allied Command Transformation will conduct three experimentations during Cyber Coalition 22, in collaboration with other NATO bodies, NATO nations, industry and academia; these experimentations will aim to assess whether an Artificial Intelligence-supported tool can help detect cyber threats and protect networks in a quicker, automated way; showcase existing technologies for the use of machine readable/usable defensive cyber information in near-real time; and capture publicly available information in real time, including social media feeds, to produce dashboards and test their usefulness for operational-level Cyberspace Situational Awareness.
Cyber defence is a core task of NATO’s collective defence. At the Madrid Summit in June 2022, NATO Allies committed to further their efforts to enhance their cyber defence capabilities, as well as their cooperation with the industry and other key stakeholders such as the European Union.