NATO cyber exercise – War games against the backdrop of Ukraine

NATO’s large-scale exercise, Locked Shields, in cyberspace, will bring together technical experts from both Alliance countries and Ukraine, about two months after the start of the Russian invasion.

These annual Locked Shields cyber war games will begin tomorrow, Tuesday, in Tallinn, Estonia, and end on Friday, April 22nd. This simulation is organized by the NATO Cyber ​​Defense Cooperation Center of Excellence, and it includes exercises to deal with any cyber attacks under time pressure.

This year’s event is particularly important for the participating countries, whose cyber-defense units have been on high alert since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Annette Numa, Estonia’s Defense’s international policy adviser, told the Wall Street Journal. relating to cyberspace.

“Countries pursuing similar policies should work together to protect themselves,” he said. “Ukrainian and Estonian specialists will work in the same team as part of the exercise,” he added.

NATO officials have considered various ways in which the Alliance could help Ukraine deal with cyberattacks, while allowing the country access to the Alliance’s platform for sharing malware information.

NATO has about 30 cyber defense experts from various Alliance bodies as well as member countries, specializing in areas such as Communications, Digital Criminology, Law and systems recovery affected by such an attack, he said. At the WSJ, Ian West, head of NATO’s Cybersecurity Center, which oversees the Alliance’s networks and is part of its communications and information service.

Why is exercise useful?

Military cyber exercises come in many forms: Some are national in nature, such as Operation Eligible Receiver, organized by the US Department of Defense in 1997. Others are more general, such as the “Cyber ​​Alliance,” organized annually by NATO. Others, such as Crossed Swords, focus on attack, while others, such as Locked Shields, focus mainly on Defense.

The Locked Shields exercise allows cyber defense experts from different countries to communicate about attacks on technology products used by many governments, West explains.

“We all use the same technology and, as we know, much of it is on the market and unfortunately it is vulnerable,” he said.

The benefit of these exercises is that they provide a common ground for participants to measure their cyber defense skills by mobilizing them against each other, says Stephen Soesado, a cyber defense researcher, at the WSJ.

They also help experts get to know their counterparts in other Alliance countries, he added.

It is noted that, in general, military exercises in cyberspace take place in a virtual environment. The benefit of this is that the organizer has the ability to collect information, as it is easier to record the actions of different groups.

What are the challenges?

In addition to their benefits, military exercises in cyberspace pose some challenges.

According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), it is difficult to have a realistic exercise without a realistic battlefield. Setting up the environment for these exercises costs money. A prime example is the US Department of Defense’s plan for a global cyber-learning environment, which is expected to cost about $ 1 billion.

In addition, these exercises rarely last more than a few days. This may lead to unrealistic expectations about the nature of cyber business. It is well known that the momentum of decision-making in these companies stems from their time frame.

Preparing for more advanced cyber operations takes time, which may have influenced the ability of Russian hackers to attack Ukrainian systems. In addition, it often takes a long time from the beginning of a business to the fulfillment of its strategic goals.

In addition, these exercises usually revolve around a series of extremely destructive cyber-attacks over a relatively short period of time – a common scenario is that of attacking important infrastructure from an adversary country.

However, in cyberspace, there are multi-year campaigns consisting of affiliated companies, with the aim of gaining strategic benefits, without the need for an armed attack. Therefore, understanding the multifaceted and simultaneous nature of cyber activities is difficult within the narrow time frame of these exercises.

Cooperation or competition?

Moreover, in the case of Locked Shields, it is difficult to advance NATO principles of collective defense. The aim of the exercise is the cooperation between different teams to deal with cyber attacks. As it has been seen, however, it is difficult to effectively evaluate the cooperation in the context of the exercises, while it is also difficult to balance it with the competitive nature of the simulation.

Finally, an inevitable aspect of these exercises is that they sometimes end. And while it is difficult to predict the future of cyberspace, the only thing that is certain is that the activities that take place in it will not end soon.

Following the event, Locked Shields named one of the participating teams the winner for its efficiency while under attack and for the score it achieves, according to the CFR. In the real world, cyberbullying is never easy.

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