Shared Cyber Situational Awareness (Operational Priorities)

NATO’s recognition of cyberspace as a domain of operations has elevated the need for shared situational awareness across the Alliance. Every day, state-sponsored hackers and criminal groups probe Allied networks and critical infrastructure, seeking to disrupt military command systems, degrade civilian services and steal sensitive data. No single nation can fully monitor or fend off this constant cyber onslaught alone, especially as attacks often span borders and target multiple Allies simultaneously. Shared Cyber Situational Awareness has therefore emerged as a distinct operational priority under Cyber Defence & Digital Resilience, translating strategic intent into concrete cooperation on threat intelligence, early warning and collective incident monitoring.

Its core rationale is to ensure that all Allies – from the largest cyber power to the smallest nation – have access to a common real-time picture of malicious cyber activities, enabling faster detection, coherent responses and stronger overall resilience across NATO. This line of effort is explicitly anchored in high-level NATO and EU strategy documents adopted in the wake of intensified cyber and hybrid threats since 2018. The NATO Strategic Concept 2022 affirmed that cyberspace is “contested at all times” and that adversaries continuously seek to degrade critical infrastructure, interfere with government services and impede military activities. It commits the Alliance to enhance its ability to “prevent, detect, counter and respond” to the full spectrum of cyber threats as part of collective defence.

NATO leaders have reinforced this direction at recent summits. In 2023, Allied heads of state and government endorsed a new cyber defence concept aimed at integrating political, military and technical cyber efforts and at engaging the private sector – explicitly stating that doing so “will enhance our shared situational awareness”. This guidance reflects lessons from Russia’s war against Ukraine and other crises, where cyber attacks on power grids, communications and government networks underscored the need for better collective awareness and rapid information sharing among Allies.