It has been a great honour for the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) to co-organise this important cyber activity with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and the Enhancing Security Cooperation in and with Asia (ESIWA) project.
This ESDC course has provided participants with a better understanding of the EU cybersecurity ecosystem and outlined its key policies, regulations and instruments, as well as the role of the EU cybersecurity ecosystem in strengthening global security, stability, building trust and facilitating cooperation between nations.
In addition, a table top exercise was provided, built around a fictional actor that becomes a victim of a cyber-attack on national critical infrastructure. Participants gathered to discuss their options for responding appropriately based on the information provided.
We would also like to stress the huge effort behind the complex process for selecting the most suitable members of the various Indo-Pacific’ institutions:
The National Cyber Security Agency, the Department of ICT, the Department of Justice, the Armed Forces, the Institute for Defence Analyses, the Internet Security Agency, the National Police Agency, the Ministry of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Communication, Justice, Public Security and Technology, the National Bureau of Investigation, the National Cyber and Crypto Agency, CERT, and the Supreme Prosecutors Office.
This cyber course is one of several cyber activities organised by the ESDC Cyber ETEE platform (cyber education, training, exercise and evaluation). The overall aim of the platform is to address cybersecurity, to provide defence training to civilian and military personnel, and to include CSDP requirements in all relevant training for EU Member States. The platform deals with all domains of cybersecurity, including cyber crime, network information security, cyber defence and external relations.
Accordingly, several crucial cyber topics were discussed during the three-day course:
- Global cooperation in cybersecurity: presentations from the Indo-Pacific region to provide a regional perspective on cyber-diplomacy, cybersecurity and/or cyber capacity-building
- Main global cybersecurity trends, threat landscape and key actors
- Normative framework for responsible state behaviour in cyberspace
- Presentation from the EU institutions, agencies and bodies on cyber-related tasks, the EU Cybersecurity Strategy for the Digital Decade: internal dimension, external dimension, Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe, and Digital Services Act
- Experience and approach of one EU Member State: approach and priorities of the Netherlands in cybersecurity and cyber-diplomacy
- Building resilience and mitigating cyber threats: the EU’s Joint Framework to counter hybrid threats and information manipulation
- The EU’s international cooperation and cyber capacity-building – initiatives to increase global cyber resilience: Framework for the EU’s external cyber capacity-building – EU external cyber capacity-building network (EU projects and other support possibilities in Asia-Pacific countries)
