Ukraine to join NATO CCDCOE

Ukraine has joined the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) as a contributing participant after all 27 sponsoring countries in the Steering Committee of the CCDCOE agreed to its membership, the centre announced on 4 March.

A CCDCOE spokesperson informed Janes that Ukraine had initially demonstrated its interest in joining the centre last year but had sent a letter last week to confirm its continued interest in joining.

The Steering Committee had planned to hold a virtual meeting to discuss Ukraine's participation; however, because of difficulties in finding a date, an online vote was held with the committee, and all 27 countries unanimously agreed.

Colonel Jaak Tarien, director of the NATO CCDCOE, stated in the announcement that “Ukraine's presence in the centre will enhance the exchange of cyber expertise between Ukraine and CCDCOE member nations. Ukraine could bring valuable first-hand knowledge of several adversaries within the cyber domain to be used for research, exercises, and training”.

When asked what type of experience Ukraine could offer the centre, the spokesperson detailed that “Ukraine has already suffered many cyber attacks and can give us important information on how and what was attacked. This represents the TTP [Technics, Tactics, and Procedures] of the attacker and helps us and the member nations to better prepare for such attacks. DDoS [distributed denial-of-service] attacks as well as wipers [deletion of data on the attacked system] were used. Also, defacements, i.e. the takeover of a webpage and presentation of a different content”.

The CCDCOE is a Tallinn-based cyber defence hub, focusing on research and training that intends to bolster the capability, co-operation, and information sharing of cyber defence related matters among NATO and participating countries, the CCDCOE outlined in a separate announcement.