From Julian Hale, Defense News:  Maj. Gen. Patrick Fermier, director of NATO C3 Staff, dodged a question about whether there was a need to improve cyber offensive capacity to improve cyber defense.

"NATO is trying to develop the protection of its infrastructure network," Fermier said. This is the first step, he added, after which "we’ll see, at 28, what steps to take in the future. Protecting information and information sharing is a key parameter of success in any military operation."

Robert Bell, senior civilian representative of the secretary of defense in Europe and defense adviser to the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said that NATO needs to get all its agencies and commands under a single cyber defense roof by the end of 2012 and was on track to do that. He also said NATO needs to identify standards.

"We have no alternative except to work in close partnership with industry, which has much to teach us about the use of open standards to get us to the point where we need to be," he said. . . .

[T]he German Ministry of the Interior has taken a stance in its national cybersecurity strategy, unveiled earlier this year.

"We are in favor of the alliance’s commitment to establishing uniform security standards, which member states may also use for civilian critical infrastructures on a voluntary basis, as foreseen in NATO’s new Strategic Concept," says the document.   (graphic: CCDCOE)