On Tuesday (17 May 2022), NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoană gave an opening address to the first International Conference on Cyber Diplomacy hosted by the National Institute for Research and Development in Informatics – ICI Bucharest, in partnership with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his address, he praised the valued contributions Romania has made to the Alliance, and the way the country has been “diligently implementing the NATO cyber defence pledge”.
Speaking on NATO’s cyber defence, he said that “as our daily dependence on digital assets increases, so does our vulnerability to cyber-attacks and incidents”, underlining the importance of reinforcing cyber defence and resilience at all levels. This was recently demonstrated in Ukraine where “NATO has helped enhance Ukraine’s resilience to cyber-attacks as part of our way to support their defence and security sector reform”.
He recalled the many initiatives NATO has pioneered to strengthen the Alliance’s cyber defences, starting with the establishment of cyberspace an operational domain alongside land and sea in 2016. This was followed by a new comprehensive cyber defence policy in June 2021, recognising that cyberspace is contested at all times. The Deputy Secretary General also highlighted that on 18 May NATO will convene the first ever Cyber Coordinators North Atlantic Council.
These remarks opened the first edition of the International Conference on Cyber Diplomacy, titled “Building global digitalisation: creating trust and security through cyber diplomacy”. The event brought together Ambassadors, academia, and experts from the international cyber and defence community, and aimed to promote excellence in research and innovation in Romania and integrate it regionally and internationally in cyber research.