NCI Agency and Industry experts have stepped up their collaboration aimed at improving our defences against cyber threats.
As part of this ongoing cooperation, Agency and Industry representatives held a cyber Threat Vector Analysis workshop which was hosted by Fortinet in Valbonne, France on August 23, 2016.
Building upon previous challenges
This workshop focused on Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks, which is a threat that both NATO and industry regularly experience.
The aim of this latest joint effort was to better understand the evolution of DDOS attacks in order to improve defences against them.
It was the third in a series of events held since February aiming to strengthen NATO and Industry cyber defences through collaborative identification of cyber threats as well as techniques, practices and procedures to counter those threats.
"The TVA workshops illustrate what can be achieved when NATO and industry sit down together to tackle a common challenge," said Ian West, NCI Agency's Chief of Cyber Security and co-chair of the August workshop. "Through this forum, we have identified obstacles to closer collaboration on countering cyber threats and have taken steps to overcome them. Each workshop builds upon the one before, improving the cyber defences of NATO and industry alike. Working together, we have already made advances in our understanding of these modern threats and how to defend against them".
Smart and collective cyber defence
The Threat Vector Analysis (TVA) workshops are a key activity of the NATO Industry Cyber Partnership (NICP) and are focused on developing a common taxonomy for threats and the use of standards in exchanging cyber threat information in order to improve understanding and the efficiency of information sharing, ultimately leading to better collective cyber defence.
Alliance leaders endorsed the NICP at the Wales Summit in September 2014, recognizing that NATO and Industry face shared risks in the cyber domain, and that addressing these challenges requires new frameworks for action. Executives representing security and defence, IT, financial, and critical infrastructure sectors later formed an informal cyber defence working group to focus on priority areas where NATO and Industry can work together for mutual benefit both at a technical and operational level in order to develop greater momentum for information-sharing and collaboration. Through these initiatives, the Alliance is cooperating with Industry in new and innovative ways which benefit both parties - it really is both smart and collective cyber defence.