Joint Cyberspace Command participates in NATO “Cyber Coalition 21” exercise

• The exercise is the Alliance's largest exercise in term of cyber defence.

The Joint Cyberspace Command participated in the NATO Cyber Coalition 21 exercise from 29 November to 3 December.

Cyber Coalition is NATO's flagship collective cyber-defence exercise in the cyberspace domain and one of the largest in the world, both in terms of complexity due to the number of countries and individuals involved, and in terms of the ambitious objectives pursued.

The exercise has been held annually since 2008 and brings together a cyber coalition of Allies, NATO partners and NATO bodies to strengthen the Alliance's ability to deter, defend and counter threats in cyberspace.

Cyber Coalition is executed through the Estonian Cyber Security Exercises and Training Centre, or 'CR14' (Cyber Range 14), which supports allies and Alliance partners through the NATO Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCD CoE).

In Spain, under the operational command of the Commander of the Joint Cyberspace Command and coordinated by its Staff and its various units, some 50 people participated in the exercise, not only from the Cyber Defence Task Force (FOCE in Spanish) belonging to the Joint Cyberspace Command, but also from teams from the Spanish Army, Navy, Air Force, Civil Guard and National Police Corps. Members of the aforementioned organisations, the Ministry of Defence, the Directorate General of Defence Policy (DIGENPOL in Spanish), the Security Technology Centre of the Ministry of the Interior, the Public Prosecutor's Office against Cybercrime and the Military Legal Corps also attended the exercise as observers.

Cyber Coalition is a collective, rather than a competitive exercise, which means that participants work together towards a particular goal, rather than competing to solve problems or achieve specific tasks. Three key objectives are pursued:

-Exercise the existing mechanisms for interaction between NATO, Allies and Partners to improve collaboration within the cyberspace domain.

-Enhance the Alliance ability to conduct cyberspace operations for military and civilian entities by exercising the development of situational awareness, sharing of cyberspace intelligence, and the conduct of cyber incident management.

-Provide input to NATO Cyberspace Transformation by providing a platform to identify capability gaps, training requirements, and validate procedures under development in order to support cyber warfare development and to improve cyber education and training

Cyber Coalition provides an ideal framework for the development of operations that cannot be tested in real life, adopting the particular approach needed to validate knowledge of what is happening in cyberspace as an additional element in the Command's decision-making process.

Defence against malware and any hybrid threat using social networks, mobile devices (including phones), not only in a military scenario, but also in scenarios such as nuclear power plants and nuclear facilities, gas pipelines, ports, etc., is exercised.