Enhancing Civil-Military Cyber Resilience Lessons from the ECYBRIDGE Tabletop Exercise
Enhancing Civil-Military Cyber Resilience Lessons from the ECYBRIDGE Tabletop Exercise

Summary/Abstract: The ECYBRIDGE Tabletop Exercise (TTX), organized by the Romanian National Cyber Security Directorate in October 2024, brought together civilian and military cybersecurity stakeholders to respond to a simulated cyber crisis impacting critical infrastructure jointly. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of TTX, highlighting insights at the organizational, technical, and policy levels. The exercise scenario - a multi-phase cyber attack on significant port and military unit infrastructures - provided a realistic test of incident response plans and civil-military cooperation. TTX successfully met its objectives, achieving high scenario realism, strong multisector engagement (with over 25 participants from 10 civilian and defence organizations across 5 EU states), and effective strategic–technical coordination. Key findings include the need for formalized cross-sector communication protocols, integrated incident command structures, improved patch management and network segmentation, and enhanced diplomatic coordination during cyber crises, particularly when essential critical infrastructure in high-criticality sectors is involved. Participant feedback rated the scenario as highly relevant and the exercise as engaging, while suggesting improvements in scenario context and injecting complexity. The lessons learnt from TTX align with the EU cybersecurity strategies, policies and directives and include valuable recommendations for strengthening Europe’s cyber resilience. Moreover, we identified actionable recommendations to strengthen civil-military cyber crisis response within the E.U. digital landscape. These include unified response frameworks, joint training programs, and multinational cyber task forces, offering practical guidance for practitioners and policymakers across both civilian and defence communities.

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