On November 11–22 international cybersecurity and defence Exercise Amber Mist 2019 is held in Lithuania. It trains national and multinational teams formed by institutions and enterprises of the private and the public sectors of the state, Lithuanian Armed Forces, NATO allies and partners. A team of the Cyber Rapid Reaction Teams (RRTs) project initiated by Lithuania under the EU Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) framework is taking part in the exercise for the second consecutive year. It is done in preparation for the rotation in 2020 when the first international team formed under PESCO framework and led by Lithuania will enter the standby.
“The teams was taking its very first steps in the exercise one year ago, foreign representatives were deciding the possibilities of activating such a team, and this year it is also training alongside other exercise participants in full force,” Vice Minister of National Defence Edvinas Kerza said during a visit to Exercise Amber Mist 2019.
Vice Minister E. Kerza stressed that a cooperation agreement planned to be signed by the countries participating in the project would lay a solid foundation for the team to become a capability that could be used not only by European Union members but also by partners.
Head of the PESCO RRT Deividas Stumbras underscored how important it was for the team to meet ahead of the beginning of the rotation in 2020 to discuss procedural and technical aspects of the rotation. The two weeks of the exercise allowed the participants to understand each other better, to see the strengths of the team and to identify the competences that needed to be added.
The RRT is formed by Lithuanian, Dutch Polish, Romanian and Finnish cybersecurity experts. On the first week of the exercise the PESCO Team was not only learning and training but also completing teambuilding tasks, preparing operational procedures and discussing compatibility of the used instruments. On the second week the team was joined by experts from the Italian Armed Forces and the Ministry of Defence of Finland on observer rights.
On the second week the PESCO force and other participants were training to protect networks and systems, responded to incidents and carried out internal communication. “I am very happy about the representatives delegated by PESCO countries – they are highly competent specialists who have the experience and are able to work with numerous different systems, incidents and tools. Which is also a sign of a successful exercise,” D. Stumbras said.
Over 100 experts from Lithuania , United States, Georgia, Ukraine and European Union member states trained at Exercise Amber Mist 2019 on November 11–22. The exercise evaluated the ability of the Rapid Reaction Teams (RRTs) to carry out defensive cybersecurity operations – assess hostile actions in cyberspace, detect and identify cyber threats, prevent potential cyber-attacks and neutralise their effect.
Photo credits: Sgt Spc I. Budzeikaitė, T. Šakūnas
