On April 30 Vice Minister of National Defence Margiris Abukevičius discussed cooperation on strengthening capabilities in order to counter the Russian and Chinese activities in cyberspace with had a video call with U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy Mieke Eoyang.
“Lithuania and the U.S. start the first pilot project, Cyber Threat Analysis Cell, at the Regional Cyber Defence Centre in Kaunas. This mutual activity will significantly contribute to the analysis of regional cyber threats,” Vice Minister M. Abukevičius said at the meeting.
Concrete actions were agreed during the call to be taken to upgrade the skills and qualifications of Lithuanian cybersecurity specialists, to train to defend critical state infrastructure, increase resilience against cyberattacks, and to develop applied research in the area of cyber security together. Both sides agreed that critical infrastructure especially that in the area of energy security, had never been so relevant.
“The United States is ready to dedicate special attention to cooperation with Lithuania on cyber,” said Mieke Eoyang and stressed that the sitting U.S. Administration was prepared to strengthen collective defence and increase awareness on cybersecurity. The U.S. official underscored that efforts would be made to fill in expertise gaps of cybersecurity personnel through joint training in cyber exercise and training events.
It was agreed at the first meeting with the recently appointed U.S representative to continue the dialogue in the nearest while, when the initial results from the pilot project are presented.
Photo credit: MoD
