Preparations for the fourth rotation of the Lithuanian-initiated and coordinated European Union Permanent Structure Cooperation Cyber Rapid Response Teams projects in 2022 was discussed in Vilnius. The CRRT is a pool of experts from all six member state participants: Lithuania, Poland, Netherlands, Romania, Croatia, Estonia. It is led by Poland in 2021 and Slovenia has voiced an intent to change its observer status into member.
On September 23 members of the EU PESCO CRRT Council discussed further development of the capability at a meeting at the Ministry of National Defence.
Vice Minister of National Defence Margiris Abukevičius welcomed the meeting participants and underscored stronger cooperation with partner countries of the CRRT project. “Assistance to Common Security and Defence Policy operations and missions and mutual assistance among members of the project and other EU members is a critical factor in light of the challenges of today,” he said.
The Lithuanian-coordinated PESCO Cyber Rapid Response Teams and Mutual Assistance in Cyber Security project is among the most successful and most advanced PESCO projects. It reached Full Operational Capacity in May as a result of Exercise Alarmex 2021 which rehearsed dispatch of CRRT to respond to cyber-incidents at diplomatic missions of the Netherlands in Lithuania and Poland.
The aim is to have CRRTs able to respond to cyber-incidents within 72 hours after receiving a request from member states, EU institutions, European Common Security and Defence Policy operations and missions. CRTTS also can carry out prevention and vulnerability assessments.
The EU PESCO CRRTs were tested in action not only at exercises but also with real-world tasks in 2020: a CRRT assisted in verifying resilience of the Republic of Lithuania electoral systems.
Photo credits: Giedrė Maksimovicz-Alkema
