Command Post Exercise on Cyber Defense of State Registers: Developing Practices that Build Resilience

As part of the development of a national culture of cyber resilience and to increase the public sector's readiness to respond to modern cyber threats, the CIREX.CYBER.REGISTERS command and staff training exercise (CTX) on cyber defense of public electronic registers was held in Ukraine.

The event was organized by the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine with the support of the USAID Project “Cybersecurity of Ukraine's Critical Infrastructure” using the best practices of the U.S. Agency for Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection (CISA).

The tabletop exercises format allows us to practice models of response to potential cyber incidents in conditions close to real ones. This time, the scenario was based on lessons learned from real-life cyberattacks, including those on public registries. This allowed the participants to analyze vulnerabilities in more depth, test the effectiveness of internal response procedures, and establish interagency coordination.

The event was attended by about 40 representatives of public authorities and enterprises that are critical to the functioning of the state. During the exercise, the participants did not compete for the best solutions - the main emphasis was placed on jointly working through problem situations, sharing experiences and finding effective solutions.

Natalia Tkachuk, Secretary of the National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity, Head of the Information Security and Cybersecurity Service of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, delivered the opening remarks. She emphasized the importance of continuously improving mechanisms for responding to cyber threats and developing a culture of command post exercises as a tool for increasing the resilience of national cybersecurity and reminded that the national practice of command post exercises in the field of cybersecurity was launched in December 2021.

"In December 2021, we created a working group of all key cybersecurity actors and developed a scenario that allowed us to predict the enemy's actions. This gave us a strategic advantage when the full-scale war broke out," said Natalia Tkachuk.

The National Coordination Center for Cybersecurity supports the conduct of command and staff exercises and expresses gratitude to the organizers for the consistent development of this practice. Coherence of actions, a common vision of threats and constant interaction between all participants in cyberspace are the key to effective protection of state digital resources in the face of constant pressure from the enemy.