From the 27th of September until the 1st of October, the Military University Institute will host, and participate, the Exercise CYBER PHALANX 2021 (CYPH21).
This exercise, which has 130 participants, from 20 nationalities representing 16 member states and various bodies of the European Union and NATO, is organized and conducted by the Portuguese Armed Forces General Staff in cooperation with the European Defense Agency.
The CYPH21 is a combination of a course and an exercise, which was developed in 2018 in Wals-Siezenheim, Austria, by the European Defense Agency (EDA) and the contractor Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH (IABG) in response to the requirement of Member States of the European Union, formulated through their Military Staff (EUMS), for a Cyber Defense training opportunity suitable for dealing with cyber threats in their operations and missions.
The CYBER PHALANX series is a combined Command Posts Exercise course and exercise, which is based on the planning of an European Union military operation, conducted at strategic-military and operational levels, for operations planners with the aim of scaling up its awareness, centered in the Operations Planning Process on cyber and hybrid threats, aiming primarily to sensitize and prepare strategic leaders, and their teams, to plan, prepare and respond to the emergence of cyber and hybrid threats in military operations.
This is the second edition of the exercise, and it will be groundbreaking in that it focuses on combating hybrid threats that leverage cyber power as a catalyst for effects.
Brigadier General João Campos Rocha, Director of Communications and Information Systems for the Portuguese Armed Forces General Staff, in the opening speech, stressed that “Although nations have recently made progress in developing their Cyber Defense capabilities, there is a consensus that there is still much room for improvement. That’s why the CYBER PALHANX 2021 is so important”
This importance is further reinforced by the participation of the European Center of Excellence for Hybrid Threats, headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, and the NATO Cyber Defense Center of Excellence, headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia, of which Portugal is a Member State.
