Verslag International Cyber reserve Event (ICE)

Bringing cyberreservists together. That is the basic objective of the recently created Cyber Reserve Committee (CRC) of CIOR. That is exactly what the CRC did on Saturday 19th of November. The CRC organized its first international cyberreserve event, called ICE, online.

Delegates to the CRC, representing different CIOR member nations, the CIOR Presidency’s Secretary General, representatives from Norway’s Cyber Defence and from the Norwegian Military Cyber Academy, and a representative from the cyber working group of NATO’s Reserve Forces Committee, attended the meeting remotely.

We shared unclassified information about how Estonia, Finland, Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Canada and Portugal are organizing their military cyber activities and how reservists play a role. All participants agree that the nations all have similar challenges in the cyber domain, and having access to the right kind of cyber expertise, both defensive and offensive, is essential to a nation’s security.

The participants also discussed the different approaches on how to recruit cyber reservists, train and organize them, and finally, how to deploy them in military activities.

The first ICE laid the foundation of trust and sharing that the CRC aims to build upon, in order to provide NATO and its member states with a network of military cyber experts. This network of officers that work every day, in their civilian job, in cyber security, dealing with cyber threats, attacks and helping organizations to stay safe and become more cyber resilient.

As CIOR VPs nominate their nation’s delegates to the CRC, the network grows and more knowledge and urgently needed experience becomes available to NATO and its member states.

In 2023 the CRC intends to organize a larger ICE, meeting physically in the Netherlands.