Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence

NATO küberkaitsekoostöö keskus
NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence
Located in Signal battalion base Tallinn, Estonia
Coordinates 59°25′23.69″N 24°46′3.26″E / 59.4232472°N 24.7675722°ECoordinates: 59°25′23.69″N 24°46′3.26″E / 59.4232472°N 24.7675722°E
Type NATO Centre of Excellence
Site information
Controlled by NATO CCD COE Steering Committee
Site history
Built 2008

NATO CCD COE, officially the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (Estonian: K5 or NATO küberkaitsekoostöö keskus) is one of NATO Centres of Excellence, located in Tallinn, Estonia. The Centre was established on 14 May 2008, it received full accreditation by NATO and attained the status of International Military Organisation on 28 October 2008. The Centre conducts research and training on cyber security and includes a staff of approximately 40 persons.

History

In 2003, prior to the country’s official accession to NATO, Estonia proposed the creation of a "cyber excellence center". The 2006 Riga summit listed possible cyber attacks among the asymmetric threats to the common security and acknowledged the need for programs to protect information systems over the long term. The cyber attacks on Estonia in 2007 highlighted for the first time the potential vulnerability of any NATO countries, their institutions and societies, and even NATO itself to disruption or penetration of their information and communications systems.

Estonia’s proposals for a NATO cyber excellence center received strong support from the alliance’s Secretary-General "Jaap" de Hoop Scheffer. NATO completed an assessment of the situation, partly in light of Estonia’s experience, in April 2007, and approved a NATO policy on cyber defence in January 2008. NATO’s summit communiqué in Bucharest in April announced NATO’s readiness to "provide a capability to assist allied nations, upon request, to counter a cyber attack".

“ The need for a cyber-defence centre to be opened today is compelling. It will help NATO defy and successfully counter the threats in this area. ”

—General James Mattis in Brussels May 14 2008.[1]

Overview

The Cyber Defence Center in Tallinn is one of 18 accredited[2] Centres of Excellence (COEs), for training on technically sophisticated aspects of NATO operations. It is being funded nationally and multi-nationally as these centers are closely linked with Allied Command Transformation and promote the alliance-approved transformation goals.

The main agenda of the facility is to:

The centre has also other responsibilities which include:

Current status

There are currently 16 countries involved within the centre:[3]

NATO CCD COE's Founding Nations are Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Spain.[4] Hungary, Poland, the United States and the Netherlands joined in the following years.[5][6][7] In 2014 France, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, and Austria as the first non-Nato country joined the centre.[8]

Membership at the NATO CCD COE is open to all NATO nations. Additionally Iceland has also shown interest in joining the NATO CCD COE.[9]

NATO CCD COE can also establish cooperative relations with non-NATO nations, universities, research institutions, and businesses as Contributing Participants.

See also

Notes and references

External links