Defeating cyber attacks

Belgium is the lead nation for a new NATO Smart Defence project designed to help defeat cyber attacks. The platform will facilitate information sharing.

Sharing malware information to defeat cyber attacks

Belgium is the lead nation for a new NATO Smart Defence project designed to help defeat cyber attacks. The Malware Information Sharing Platform (MISP) will facilitate information sharing of the technical characteristics of malware within a trusted community without having to share details of an attack.

The project kicked off at NATO Headquarters on 29 November following an offer from the Belgian Minister of Defence, Pieter De Crem. “Belgium firmly believes in multinational approaches…..with our renewed commitment and with our lead, we want to broaden the basis and to help better protect NATO and its member states.” said Ambassador Rudy Huygelen, the Belgian Permanent Representative to NATO.

“The common development of a new capability under the umbrella of NATO also helps to ensure the interoperability among those who share this capability,” added Ambassador Sorin Ducaru, Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO.

The national platform is already shared with some nations as well as the NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC), which is responsible for coordination of cyber defence activities within NATO and with nations, as well as cyber defence liaison with international organisations.

The ultimate goal of the project is to develop a NATO capability, available to all NATO nations, through which nations commit to sharing their information. A legal framework for this project will be developed ahead of the first workshop, planned for spring next year, when a complete overview of the project will be presented. Member registration is planned for May 2014 and will be followed by the first working meeting in June 2014.

Source: NATO.