Admin
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will soon select a contractor to help defend alliance nations’ cutting-edge infrastructure from cyber attacks, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
The awardee will provide software, hardware and support at more than 20 NATO locations to help prevent cyber attacks. The contract will call for advanced sensors to be built into NATO’s networks and mobile cyberdefense kits that enable a quick response to cyber breaches.
The awardee will also develop centralized systems that will pipeline situational information to NATO officials in case of a cyber attack as well as other situations.
While the award is worth more than $40 million, countries looking to develop cybersecurity systems of their own may use the NATO system as a blueprint, Daniel Michaels writes.
“There could be a long comet’s tail of opportunity from an industrial perspective,” said Paul MacGregor, a director of cyber solutions for Finmeccanica.
NATO will also award work to provide more expansive (i.e. expensive) cyber solutions over time, as it has a cemented role of protecting alliance infrastructure, NATO officials say.
“Its a small amount of money, but its technically ambitious,” added Suleyman Anil, head of NATO’s cyber defense section, in an interview with the journal.
NATO’s systems will need to be able to collect and analyze data from NATO networks that can stretch from the U.S. to Afghanistan, Michaels points out.
