South Korean intelligence agency on Thursday said that South Korea has joined a cyber defense group under NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), becoming its first Asian member community. ZDNet reports "South Korea had suffered numerous cyberattacks in the past with targets ranging from state-run nuclear research institutes to cryptocurrency companies, most of which were allegedly committed by North Korean hacking groups."
According to National Intelligence Service (NIS), South Korea, along with Luxembourg and Canada, have been added to the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), a think tank from Tallinn, Estonia. It supports member countries and NATO with cyber defense research, exercises, and training. CCDCOE was founded in 2008 by NATO countries, on behalf of Estonia's initiative, as a response to the country suffering intense cyberattacks done by Russia.
With the inclusion of the three latest members, CCDCOE now has 32 members among which, 27 are sponsored members of NATO and 5 contributing members, which includes South Korea, which is not a part of NATO. NIS said that South Korea has been active since 2019 to become a member of CCDCOE to learn cyber defense expertise to safeguard the country's infrastructure backbone, and to plan out a global strategy. NIS is planning to send more staff to the center and increase the scope of joint training. Cyberattacks were making a massive impact on users and countries that need global cooperation to respond.
South Korea will work alongside CCDCOE members to formulate a robust cyber defense system. "Even prior to becoming an official member of the center, South Korea had taken part in CCDCOE's large-scale, live-fire cyber defense exercise, Locked Shields, where thousands of experts from member nations and partners jointly defended a fictional country against simulated cyberattacks," says ZDNet.
