NATO is advancing its efforts to both confront and address the wide range of cyber threats faced by Allies each day and this includes engaging industry, academia, and public institutions in these efforts.
"Cyber security incidents are increasing in both scope and scale every day. Our defensive mechanisms have been outpaced by the scope and scale of malicious cyber activities and, as a result, this issue now sits as one of the most important emerging security challenges facing our countries today", says Melissa Hathaway, Council of Experts, Global Cyber Security Centre (GCSEC).This NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme supported event set out to explore common interest issues for improving Allied and Partner cyber defence practices. The workshop directly addressed the SPS Key Priority area for cyber defence as well as addressing NATO's cyber defence policy implementation. The workshop brought together a multi-disciplinary team of experts from sixteen countries and three international institutions to share experience, knowledge, and positions. Together they generated twenty-one specific findings and twelve papers to help improve the cyber defence posture of NATO Allied countries and their Partners. Following the workshop, a collection of papers from the panel discussions formed the basis of a book that was published as part of the NATO Science Series. The Editor and Co-Directors of the project were invited to brief the relevant committee responsible for cyber defence at NATO on the findings of the workshop, and the publication was launched at a 'Book Talk' event held at NATO HQ on 10 February 2014. The NATO Country Project Director and editor of the publication, Melissa Hathaway, said, "This demands that they collectively take action to reduce vulnerabilities of organisations' information systems, assets, infrastructures, and people. Accordingly, organisations are shifting their security approach toward monitoring ingress and egress routes, cataloguing the tactics, techniques, and procedures of adversary activity to better understand impacts and manage risk. Equally important, they are investing in advanced counter-measures to strengthen security postures and become more resistant to cyber threats. In the future they will need to focus initiatives toward the protection, resilience, recovery, and restoration of services that transcend national boundaries, like electric power, navigation, and telecommunications.