09.12.2021.

Exercise "Cyber Tesla 2021" successfully completed

The four-day International Command and Staff Exercise "Cyber Tesla 2021", which took place in Serbia and detached locations in the United States and Hungary, has ended today with the final display in the "Vojvoda Radomir Putnik" barracks in Gornji Milanovac.

The goals of the exercise, which focused on the defence of the telecommunications and information system from cyberspace threats, were building the capacities of the defence system and the National Risk Prevention Centre in ICT systems of the Republic of Serbia for defence against high-tech attacks, as well as the improvement of cooperation with relevant state and private sectors, with a view to protecting the cyber space of the Republic of Serbia.

Greeting the participants and congratulating them on the successfully performed activity, Deputy Chief of the Serbian Armed Forces General Staff, Lieutenant General Petar Cvetković, noted that the Serbian Armed Forces’ international military cooperation has been very intensive this year, and that our members had the opportunity to successfully train with colleagues from many countries.

- One of those activities is Cyber Tesla, which has been conducted since 2016, under the State Partnership Program between the Ohio National Guard and Serbia, with representatives of the business and public sectors and the Serbian academic community participating, said General Cvetković. He also noted that this year, representatives of the Hungarian Defence Forces have also joined, making the exercise trilateral.

He said that the topic of the exercise "could not be more relevant", because we live in a time of rapid changes and hitherto unimaginable technological development, which affect all spheres of life, including security and defence.

- Opportunities to launch cyber attacks have become available to a wider range of actors and this poses one of the key threats to modern society. Any country can try to jeopardize our national interest at any time, said the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, adding that the exercise has achieved all its goals. According to him, the Serbian Armed Forces have taken significant security steps in cyberspace and they pay special attention to personnel training, and the experience gained from this exercise will contribute to cyberspace and cyber defence planning, organization, decision-making and control.

Colonel Mile Vitezović, Head of the Telecommunications and IT Department (Serbian Armed Forces General Staff), emphasized that the specificity of this exercise is in its multinational and multidisciplinary character, since it includes both military and civilian components.

- Over the past few days, working together with members of the partner militaries and representatives of Serbian state, public, private and academic sectors, and following established scenarios and plans, we have conducted a synchronized exercise here and in two other geographically remote locations in the United States and Hungary, the colonel noted, and said that the main benefit of the exercise is the exchange of experiences and excellent results, "thanks to which the Serbian Armed Forces have improved their cyber defence capabilities."

The Ohio Air National Guard Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Rebecca O’Connor, thanked the Ministry of Defence for successfully hosting the event and pointed out that these types of events are vitally important to the security of all of our nations.

- Cyber Tesla is a typical example of the skills that are needed to protect our vast networks. Networks nowadays do not have those traditional borders that we see in countries. They are connected, they are networked and they are all working together, so it is vitally important that we all work as a team to protect these networks to make sure that we have the safety and security, said General O’Connor, adding that these exercises make our abilities more robust and have a better breadth of knowledge of those potential treats that can come.

This important activity increases the capability to respond to incidents in cyberspace, improves the coordination of bodies and institutions responsible for cyber security, facilitates the exchange of experiences in the field of cyber security and improves bilateral military cooperation between the Serbian Armed Forces and the armed forces of participating countries.

Members of the Serbian Armed Forces previously took part in the international offensive cyberspace operations competition, which was organized last week by the US Armed Forces and the National Guard Training Centre, University of Michigan, and took first place among 13 teams.