How Polycom video conferencing helps NATO defend against cyb
Source: Danny Palmer
Polycom video conference services play a "crucial role" in helping NATO defend against cyber attacks from malicious outside agents by allowing the inter-governmental military alliance to quickly exchange information about potential threats.
That's what Gus Mommers, head of conference management services for NATO's Communications and Information Agency (NCI), said during Polycom's "Around the World in 60 minutes" event, which saw customers connect to the discussion from locations around the globe.
Mommers, who connected to the event over a video link from the US, described how the main mission statement of NCI is "to provide 24/7 critical support to connect the alliance and defend its networks".
Unsurprisingly, NATO is a regular target for state actors, computer hackers and cyber criminals.
Responding to a question from Computing, he described the role of video conferencing services from Polycom in helping NATO defend its networks.
"We have a cyber defence centre in Mons [Belgium] so we're trying to defend the alliance from any attacks from the outside on any of the alliance partners," said Mommers.
"Polycom assists in that by enabling crucial meetings internally with teams, crucial meetings with other organisations within the cyber security arena, so we can quickly exchange any crucial information," he added.
Mommers also described how NCI also has "to provide rapid support to any major operation or mission around the globe", which it does across two video networks: the NATO secret network and the NATO restricted network.
The NATO secret network is "predominantly a network which is used in NATO operations and missions", Mommers said, and he went on to describe some of the ways it was used during operations in Afghanistan.
"There were daily briefings between NATO commanders and the NATO high command in Brussels and operational briefings between the local commanders in all the sectors around Afghanistan," he explained, adding that video conferencing "just helped tremendously to provide support to critical missions, to get everything up to speed".
NATO is compromised of 28 nations with multiple languages making face to face meetings, or their video-conferencing equivalents, the best way of getting information across quickly - it is easier to understand someone if you can see their face. This means that the quality of the visuals is very important, he said.
Mommers added that video conferencing is also used in NATO's headquarters.
"New ways of working and new ways of collaborating, this is exactly what our agency is embracing and rolling out from this year onwards," he said.
"We're revamping all our headquarters and engine rooms and they'll all be redesigned and reformatting for these new ways of working and collaboration," Mommers concluded.
| }
|