OPENSPACE 23: The Satellites that Are Shaping Our Future | Page 7

“The nations in the CIICS program have established
a common space in which they can work on specific
incidents together almost in real-time.”
aim to make other nations aware of the evolving cyber value in being connected and supporting each other when
threats so that each nation can stay secure, which is good questions arise, and staying aware of the evolving threat
for everyone. landscape. Nations not only determine what they want to
share, but there are also policies that set the conditions under
How would you describe the CIICS program?
which the information can be forwarded on.
The way the system was designed allows nations to One idea that we are evaluating is to have an instance of
be connected. They can run an instance of CIICS in their CIICS set up at NATO. This would allow members to be part
own environment and use the system to engage with other of the community, and choose whether to run the system
members. If they want to share information, they can do nationally or simply connect to an instance hosted at NATO.
so by entering the information into the system, and it is Ultimately, the goal is to have everybody sharing.
automatically pushed out to the other nations.
manage their information. Others use CIICS for sharing Can you comment on the role of RHEA Group in the
delivery and support of the CIICS program?
information with the Alliance, so that they are all able to From the moment the project started two years ago,
Some members have adopted the tool nationally to
contribute and work through investigations together.
it has been about developing a system that reflects the
requirements of the three sponsoring nations: Canada,
What are the benefits for the nations that are part of
the CIICS program?
The nations in the CIICS program have established a
Romania, and The Netherlands. They had the vision of CIICS,
and RHEA Group has been the primary developer of the
system since the beginning.
common space in which they can work on specific incidents RHEA Group now provides support to the nations,
together almost in real-time. The idea is to offer NATO nations creating enhancements to continually upgrade the software
a tool they can use to bring about a community for technical and counteract any security issues. The NCI Agency also
collaboration. works with members to ensure their specific needs are taken
into consideration as the community grows. The contributions
For those nations that may be skeptical of belonging
to a cyber information sharing group, what would
you say?
We build confidence in the security tool through thorough
security testing. As an Alliance, we collectively recognize the
of RHEA Group have been great and are essential to the
CIICS program.
Read more
https://www.ncia.nato.int/NewsRoom/Pages/170227-CIICS.aspx
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