It ended on Tuesday 6 December at the automated information systems department (Re.SIA) of the Air Force, with the presentation of the exercise results in the presence of the Chief of Defense Staff, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, gen. by sa Luca Goretti and the logistic commander of the Air Force, general of the air force Roberto Comelli, the eighth edition of the Cyber Eagle 2022: exercise of Cyber Defense planned and conducted annually by the Air Force, through the logistic command of the Armed Forces and carried out in partnership with the Italian Cyber industry represented by DEAS SPA.
The main training objectives of the Cyber Eagle 2022 were training the Air Force's cyber incident alert chain, testing the use of advanced sensors by the Security Operation Center of the Armed Forces to prevent cyber attacks and to test the use of advanced technologies to counter the cyber threat. In this context, the design of artificial intelligence algorithms through the use of a has played a particularly important role Tiger Team joint Air Force - DEAS, made up of professional figures specialized in the management and governance of processed data from various sources, processed through the enhancement of the enormous technical resources of the supercomputer of the Armed Forces. The Tiger Team he also created the models used for the Security Operation Center (SOC), to oversee the prevention of the cyber threat.
Gen. Goretti in his speech highlighted how “The Air Force is increasingly technologically linked and projected towards the future. Exercises such as the Cyber Eagle allow us to add, each time over the various editions that take place over time, an extra piece to protect the amount of data that we make available to the country's system. Only through the synergistic work between the Armed Forces, other public institutions and expert industry in the sector can we reduce the cyber risk coming from outside. Creating culture, investing in the human factor and defending ourselves all together by sharing the skills acquired over time, are the objectives that we must set ourselves for the future".
For the first time, a computer attack simulation team (so-called Red Team) Of the command for network operations (COR) of the Defense General Staff, thus conferring on the Cyber Eagle also a joint connotation. In detail, the COR tested the promptness of response to a cyber attack by a peripheral body of the Air Force as well as that of the chain of command and cybernetic control of the Armed Forces, which sees the involvement of the 3rd division of the logistic command of the 'AM, of the General Security Department of the Air Force General Staff and Re.SIA
At the end of the event, the Chief of Defense Staff spoke and complimented the results of the exercise and the level of competence highlighted by the Air Force. Admiral Cavo Dragone therefore wanted to underline how "in a context where cyber attacks are increasingly complex and with transversal objectives for companies, public organizations and critical infrastructures, the role of the Armed Forces assumes a crucial defense function within the complex and integrated national response".
Faced with the increasingly concrete, real, persistent and constantly evolving cyber threat, the Defense as a whole is constantly training and updating itself to provide adequate answers in terms of defense and security of the info-structures of the Armed Forces departments, thus contributing to the cyber defense of the country.
Il automated information systems department (Re.SIA), a body dependent on the 3rd division of the logistic command of the Air Force, takes care of the creation and management of systems for the automation of logistic/administrative processes of the Armed Forces as well as the training of personnel employed in the IT sector. In recent years it has increasingly taken on an operational connotation, applying the skills acquired in the sector of Cyber Defense to the aerospace domain.
