Germany makes its cyber capabilities available for NATO alliance

Germany announced it is going to make its cyber capabilities available for the NATO alliance to help fight hacking and electronic warfare.

Germany is going to share its cyber warfare capabilities with the NATO alliance to protect members of the alliance against hacking and electronic warfare.

During the 2016 Warsaw Summit, NATO officially recognised cyberspace as a military operational domain. This means that the NATO alliance will respond with conventional weapons in case of a severe cyber attack confirming that the Internet is a new battlefield.
Each Ally is committed to improving its resilience to cyber attacks and the ability to promptly respond to cyber attacks, including in hybrid contexts. The Alliance aims to expand the scope of the NATO Cyber Range to allow allies in improving cyber capabilities and information sharing on threat and best practices.

NATO fears both nation-state hacking and attacks carried out by cyber criminals, their activities are becoming even more intense and urge a proper response from the alliance.

“NATO has designated cyberspace as a conflict domain alongside land, sea and air and says electronic attacks by the likes of Russia and China — but also criminals and so-called “hacktivists” — are becoming more frequent and more destructive.” reads a post published by AFP press.

During a meeting of defence ministers held in Brussels on Thursday, Germany told allies that it would make both its defensive and offensive cyber capabilities available.

“Just as we provide army, air force and naval forces to NATO, we are now also in a position to provide NATO capabilities on the issue of cyber within the national and legal framework that we have,” German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said.

Germany is not alone, the US, Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Estonia have all announced the availability of their offensive cyber capabilities to the alliance.

NATO members hope that the announcement of the sharing for offensive capabilities would work as a deterrent for threat actors.

Members of the alliance that already share conventional military means, aims to share their cyber capabilities for NATO missions and operations.

Potential targets of these operations can include any connected system, ranging from computers and mobile devices, to ICS systems in critical infrastructure.

“In a sign of the growing importance NATO countries attach to the cyber battlefield, this year Britain said it would spend 65 million pounds (74 million euros/$83 million) on offensive capabilities.” concludes AFP.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – NATO alliance, Germany)

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