NATO – NATO soliciting industry to beef up internal cyber defenses (Vivienne Machi, Defense News)

The NATO alliance plans to procure new cyber defense systems to replace aging platforms, with contracts worth tens of millions of euros coming online before the end of 2021.

This program, part of a series of cybersecurity technology refresh efforts being run by the NATO Communication and Information Agency (NCIA), will start in early 2022 and be worth about 27 million euros (or $32 million).

“The main reason being … that it has multiple cybersecurity systems that we’re going to be refreshing,” Benson said June 16 during the virtually held, annual NITEC Connect conference. “Whatever you name, we have it in there.”

The ideal industry partner would be an integrator with significant experience in design, and in implementing multiple, complex cybersecurity systems across multiple locations, she noted. “They have to be deployable, because we’re talking about the NATO enterprise, not just SHAPE,” Benson said, referring to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, the alliance’s headquarters for allied command operations located in Belgium. “It would be in [the team’s] benefit if they like to travel.”

Meanwhile, NCIA recently completed a new cybersecurity strategy that seeks to establish trust in NATO’s cyber defense capabilities across the alliance, said Sarah Brown, senior scientist at the agency.

The strategy, which has yet to be formalized, includes directives on workforce management and risk management planning, along with providing instructions for security operations and engineering work.

“We want to be seen as a professional service provider, a center of technical excellence, with open communication, and reporting,” Brown said. “From an organizational perspective, that means we need to have clear roles and responsibilities across the different cybersecurity areas, and also a highly skilled workforce, from the staff level all the way to the executive level, in order to deliver on our level of ambition.”

“Organizational and cultural change is difficult and often takes a crisis to make it happen,” Scheid said. “The pandemic has forced the alliance to rethink the nature of diplomatic engagements.”