16 January 2019 - The Ministry of Defence of Montenegro will begin the construction of the operation centre for the supervision and protection of information of the Ministry and the Army in 2019, to improve the country's cyber defence mechanisms. Also, the Ministry plans to build a Cyber Polygon, a training place for cyber-attacks, which would be completed by 2028.
Montenegro's long-term defence plan explains that the development of capacities for cyber defence and the improvement of information protection measures through the application of information security standards both represent a significant challenge for the Ministry and the Army of Montenegro.
"In the coming period, the focus will be on building up Montenegro’s cyber defence capabilities, primarily through the construction of a Security Operation Centre (SOC). The Centre will represent the central monitoring point, in line with the NATO Initiative on the Future Mission Network (FMN),” reports local News Agency Pobjeda.
The Ministry plans to provide a preventive and proactive response to cyber incidents, by forming the computer incident response team (CIRT) of the Ministry of Defence and the Army.
"This will create preconditions for active contribution to cyber defence at the national level and therefore to the NATO's collective security system," as explained in the defence plan.
Military analyst Aleksandar Radić said that, when it comes to Montenegro, it is necessary to invest in "communication channels" that are protected. "NATO has defined what a member country must have; it is a condition for establishing a connection and receiving information from the Alliance. The communication channel has represented a big problem until now since you cannot be part of a network of confidential NATO data if you do not have a means of connection that is protected by certain regulations. This is what we are currently working on; it is a work in progress. The purchase of connection channels and spatial planning is the basis for progress because all confidential information must be entered in the central register - these are the rules, "Radić stated for Pobjeda.
He also explained that in the period when defence priorities were defined, cyber defence was subsequently added as one of the priorities. "And of course, when you analyse the requirements for communication channels, you can understand what a military integration into NATO actually includes. In practice, it is the creation of a "Connection System" that will be compatible with NATO and that will be safeguarded according to the NATO rules of the game," Radić concluded.
Source: TVCG
