NATO wants all of its agencies and commands under a single cyber defense umbrella by 2012 and is on track to do that, a representative of the secretary of defense said to Defense News last week.
Robert Bell, defense adviser to the U.S. ambassador of NATO and the secretary’s senior civilian representative in Europe, said NATO needs to identify standards for its cyber strategy.
“We have no alternative except to work in close partnership with industry, which has much to teach us about the use of open standards to get us to the point where we need to be,” he said according to the report.
Also needed is a strategy to respond to an attack on infrastructure throughout the European Union.
The first step for NATO “is trying to develop the protection of its infrastructure network,” said Maj. Gen Patrick Fermier, director of NATO’s C3 staff. The Defense News account said Fermier dodged a question on whether NATO needed to improve its offensive capabilities in cyberspace, which would help defense as well.
“We’ll see, at 28, what steps to take in the future,” Fermier added. “Protecting information and information sharing is a key parameter of success in any military operation.”
