Hungary has performed excellently on the annual NATO Crisis Management Exercise (CMX 12) and the cyber defence exercise Cyber Coalition 2012 as well – Brig.-Gen. (Eng.) Dr. József Tokovicz, the Director-General of the Ministry of Defence Defence Administration Office and Mihály Zala, the President of the National Security Authority announced in Budapest.

At the press conference held on November 19, József Tokovicz said that around 2,500 men – 27 NATO member and two PfP countries – had participated in the crisis management exercise which ended on last weekend.  Iceland did not participate in the exercise.

Hungary has passed the simulation with flying colors – the authorities and organizations were able to cooperate very well, but the capacity of the IT systems needs to be expanded and more attention should be paid to the system operators too, the director-general said, adding that the results of the exercise will be assessed in detail over the coming weeks, and a decision will be made on taking the necessary steps.

Mihály Zala said that for the first time this year, the CMX 12 was being conducted jointly with the cyber defence exercise Cyber Coalition 2012, which had been prepared with Hungary’s participation. According to the scenario, the banking system and the air traffic control of the country came under attack and collapsed as a result. The experts modeled the scenario on the 2007 cyber attack against Estonia, he added.

The president of the National Security Authority stressed that in the case of attacks of this kind, first of all they must strive to prevent them because it is almost impossible to prepare for pre-planned and targeted attacks. He noted that the present occasion was the first time when they had opportunity to invoke Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty during a cyber attack on the exercise, which means that the member states took joint action to respond to the attack and restore the systems.

He added that in reality, this situation may arise for example, if the basic infrastructure were attacked with IT assets. Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, NATO’s founding document states that an armed attack against one or more of the Parties in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.

(MoD Press Office)