A pilot Decision-Making Exercise on Cyberspace Crisis Management will take place in Lisbon in May 2014. The pilot exercise aims to prepare strategic leaders for situations involving a major cyber-attack.
With an increasing amount of critical infrastructure - as well as military and government activities - now online the threat of cyber-attacks is growing every day. For this reason, at the European Council meeting in December 2013, Cyber was recognised as one of four key capabilities for future EDA activity.
The pilot exercise in Lisbon aims to prepare strategic leaders with the experience and structures necessary to deal with a cyberspace crisis. The exercise will help increase awareness and contribute to a better understanding of emerging cyberspace challenges and threats.
Used to develop further training courses
One of the aims of the pilot is to help to develop a coherent conceptual toolkit that could be used in assessing current and future decision-making frameworks and could be used in future training plans. This could include the development of a repository of ‘off-the-shelf’ training courses, exercises, and scenarios that Member States could use in the future.
EU Cyber Security Strategy
The pilot was developed under the EU Cyber Security Strategy which identified the improvement of leadership, training, and exercises as a key activity for cyber security efforts in the EU. This was reinforced by the results of an EDA study in 2012 that found shortcomings in Cyber Security training and exercises of all 20 Member States who took part.
The European Council in December called for the EDA to develop a roadmap for cyber defence as well as concrete projects focused on training and exercises, improving civil/military cooperation, and the protection of assets in EU missions and operation.
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