NATO–EU Strategic Priority: Cyber Defence & Digital Resilience

In recent years, the growing frequency, intensity, and sophistication of malicious cyber activity has transformed the digital domain into a central vector of risk for NATO, the European Union, and allied national governments. Cyber operations conducted by state and non-state actors target not only sensitive government and military networks, but also critical infrastructure systems essential to economic continuity, public safety, and societal stability. These threats manifest across multiple vectors, including ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, supply chain vulnerabilities, espionage campaigns, and hybrid disinformation operations. They affect strategic deterrence, operational readiness, and public trust simultaneously.

The war in Ukraine has reinforced the operational relevance of cyber tools, as digital attacks preceded and accompanied kinetic military actions. European allies now recognize that defending the cyber domain is essential not only for securing communications and data integrity, but also for ensuring the survivability of command structures, civilian services, and national decision-making autonomy under pressure. As interdependencies grow between civil and military systems, and as digital transformation accelerates across sectors, cyber defence and digital resilience have become strategic enablers for all other defence functions. This shift demands coordinated institutional action, dedicated capabilities, secure supply chains, and targeted investment in future technologies.

It also requires an adaptive policy framework capable of integrating innovation, regulating digital risk, and mobilizing both private and public actors toward common security objectives. Within this context, the protection of the digital domain is now defined not only as a technical challenge, but as a multidimensional strategic task core to collective security in the Euro-Atlantic area. The report adopts a structured analytical format to assess how cyber defence and digital resilience have emerged as a strategic priority and how this priority is being translated into institutional practice.