Colonel Robert Bala took part in an expert panel devoted to cybersecurity issues during the conference entitled “Cyber.mil.pl – Integration, and development of the cybersecurity system of the Ministry of National Defence.”

The conference took place at the Military University of Technology in Warsaw. At the beginning of the meeting, the Minister of Defense, Mariusz Błaszczak, announced the Polish army cyberspace defense forces’ creation. Speaking about the need to build new capabilities of the Polish Armed Forces in the area of cyberspace, the head of the Ministry of Defence reminded that this task was among others made during the NATO Summit in Warsaw when the North Atlantic Alliance defined the cybersphere as the 5th domain of military operations. After that, the concept of construction of the cyberspace defense forces and a package of activities related to the development of the defense in the field of cybersecurity was presented.

As a part of the conference, there were also two expert panels devoted to cybersecurity issues. They were attended, among others, by representatives of the NATO Counter Intelligence Center of Excellence, Military Counter-Intelligence Service, National Center for Cryptology, General Staff of the Polish Army, military schools, and Territorial Defense Forces.

The CI COE Director took part in the second panel entitled “Cyberspace as the fifth operational domain”. Concerning the cyberspace, colonel Bala noticed that counterintelligence tasks would not change, but the environment in which these tasks will be done will change fundamentally. This environment will be related to many new challenges that counterintelligence must tackle.

The CI COE Director also underlined three main features of cyberspace from the CI point of view. He characterized them as a lack of geographically-defined operation area, the difficulty in identifying the adversary, and an unusually high rate of action. As the critical tasks of CI in cyberspace, colonel Bala recognized, among others, protection of own resources, building a cyber-threats early warning system, timely and effective information exchange mechanism, and adequate CI personnel training and the entire Armed Forces.

“Cyberspace as the fifth operational domain” video (only in Polish, CI COE DIR from 31:30) – see below.

More information about the conference – LINK