Tomorrow, 5th of June is the first day of the CyCon 2013 conference which concentrates on technical, strategic and legal implications of using automatic methods in cyber conflicts. The three-day conference, organised for the 5th time by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, brings together 400 experts from all around the world. The opening talks of the conference will be delivered by the President of the Republic of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves and by General Keith B. Alexander, Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command.
This year the conference is dedicated to the topic of automatic methods in cyber conflicts and the conference talks will run in two parallel tracks: Strategy, Law & Ethics Track and Technical Challenges & Solutions Track. The talks vary from ethical analysis of robotic weapons arms control (by John Sullins, PhD, Sonoma State University) and international law (Prof. Michael N. Schmitt, U.S. Naval War College) to technical talks on aviation security (Hugo Teso, n.runs AG) and the viability of cyber attacks against unmanned aviation vehicle platforms (Sachin Deodhar, Zscaler Threatlabz Research Group). Among speakers are Commander Ilker Duranlioglu (NATO), Dr Gabriel Jakobson (Altusys Corp), Keren Elazari (GigaOM Research & Tel Aviv University ) Elliott Atkins (QinetiQ), Dr Jens Tölle (Fraunhofer FKIE), Jeffrey L. Caton (Kepler Strategies LLC), Prof. Dr Marco Gercke (Cybercrime Research Institute).
Today, on the conference pre-day, different workshops take place to offer the participants additional insight to different topics. “Inside NATO CCD COE” offers a sneak peek into the organisation’s educational portfolio, namely its technical training courses and exercises. “Voluntary Participation in National Cyber Defence: the Example of the Estonian Cyber Defence Unit” will introduce the results of the NATO CCD COE research project on the Cyber Defence Unit of the Estonian National Defence League, followed by a discussion on the potential of employing such a model in national defence and the benefits and risks involved. The “Legal Seminar”, being organised by the International Society for Military Law and Law of War (ISMLLW) will take a look at the legal aspects of cyber operations.
The conference is organised with the support from Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE, Technical Sponsor), Microsoft (Diamond Sponsor), Verint (Gold Sponsor), Cisco (Gold Sponsor) and Ixia (Sponsor).
NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence is an International Military Organisation located in Tallinn, Estonia. It is not an operational centre and does not fall within the NATO command structure; it is guided and financed by the nations participating in its work. Centre’s mission is to enhance the capability, cooperation and information sharing among NATO, its member nations and partners in cyber defence by virtue of education, research and development, lessons learned and consultation.