Experts meet on cyber forces

TALLINN - The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence will hold its annual international cyber defense conference with 300 participants from 37 countries at Tallinn’s Drama Theater from June 7-10, reports news agency LETA. This year’s focus will be the creation and development of national cyber forces. The conference keynote is the president of Estonia, H. E. Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the Center said.

As in previous years, the conference will explore the technical, legal and political aspects of cyber security. This year’s special focus is on generating cyber forces. In other words, the technologies, people and organizations that nations require to mitigate cyber threats.
Presentations will highlight a wide range of research, from the perspectives of both cyber attacker and defender, as well as numerous overviews of existing cyber forces.

Ralph Langner, the German computer scientist who conducted much of the ground-breaking research on the Stuxnet worm, will present an analysis of what has been called the world’s first cyber weapon. U.S. Special Agent Richard LaTulip will present an insider’s view of Operation Carder Kaos, which led to the disbanding of an extensive Ukrainian credit card fraud network. U.S. hacker Charlie Miller, who created a buzz at last year’s conference with a talk on North Korea, will explain why the bad guys are currently winning the infosec war. Other presentations include Estonia’s Cyber Defense League, the possibility of compulsory cyber service, and many legal issues related to cyber forces.

The Tallinn conference will coincide with a NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Brussels where a new cyber defense policy for NATO will be adopted. An overview of the new policy will be provided via video feed from Brussels on the last day of the conference.

The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence is a Tallinn-based international military organization whose sponsoring nations include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia and Spain. The CCD COE’s mission is to improve the cyber defense capabilities, cooperation and information exchange of NATO member states and their partners.