Prime Dutch cyber official Hans de Vries on cyber protection in instances of warfare

Hans de Vries is the director of the Nationwide Cyber Safety Heart within the Netherlands and is likely one of the forces behind The Hague’s ONE Convention, considered one of Europe’s largest cybersecurity occasions. He lately introduced he can be retiring and stepping down from his submit on the finish of the 12 months. The Report’s Dina Temple-Raston and a small group of reporters sat down with him on the fringes of the convention to speak about how the warfare in Ukraine is affecting the European cybersecurity panorama.

The dialogue was edited and condensed for readability.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: How is the warfare in Ukraine making itself felt within the Netherlands? Are you seeing a rise within the tempo of assaults?

HANS de VRIES: We’re presently, because the Netherlands, not affected, within the sense that we don’t see assaults straight on Dutch infrastructure, specializing in Dutch corporations. We frequently scan for that, however we do not see that.

What you do see is that typically the infrastructure from the Netherlands or elsewhere is being misused to do assaults on the opposite aspect. However that is not so widespread for us to see for the easy motive that I am not likely allowed to look into these techniques [as director of the NCSC]. I haven’t got the authorized talents to do this sort of labor. However typically we do get info and say, hey, that is odd.

Generally we’ve questions coming from Ukraine asking, ‘Are you able to do that?’ Or we do knowledge evaluation for them. So we assist with that sort of work. We do not usually do not discuss that, in fact.

DTR: You latterly had a tabletop train referred to as Blue Olex with European companions — are you able to discuss that? What did you be taught?

HdV: It was a global train run by the European Fee and ENISA, which was actually attention-grabbing as a result of, in fact it is a theoretical train, however it brings collectively how we arrange and we react in what we’d name disaster conditions. And it was actually attention-grabbing since you see not solely the need of getting normal working procedures, find out how to act, but in addition how totally different language and explanations are when there’s an incident.

DTR: One of many keynote audio system on the One Convention, Lorena Boix-Alonso from the European Fee, stated there have been plenty of classes discovered from the battle in Ukraine however didn’t get particular. When you have been to speak about classes discovered, what are they?

HdV: I feel there are a number of. The primary is that industrial organizations are extra, rather more capable of adapt in a short time in coping with incidents like this than governments. Easy choice, lets assist, takes days. An organization simply decides, we go, which is way, a lot sooner.

Second is that being within the cloud is extra secure than being on premise. It is positively one thing. And sure, in fact, cloud safety is unquestionably one thing you typically have to fret about however it might probably’t be bombed.

We have seen that the non-public sector is rather more adaptable than we’re. And that is painful to say however that is the reality. And, properly the third one is, in fact, Starlink has saved the day.

DTR: Even when it is perhaps topic to the whims of 1 man [Elon Musk]?

HdV: That is true now, however at the moment when he stated ‘We will present it…’ It was a life saver. I am too far-off to essentially perceive what’s occurring. Yeah. I simply say in the event you have a look at the primary section, it was essential.

DTR: To deliver it nearer to dwelling, the Worldwide Legal Courtroom in The Hague was hacked a number of weeks in the past. Are you able to speak slightly bit about that?

HdV: Um, no.

DTR: Are you able to make me smarter about that?

HdV: Nicely, we [NCSC] helped.

DTR: You helped?

HdV: After the very fact, in fact. Throughout the Dutch cyber… We organized. We coordinated. That is what we did, we coordinated. Okay. So if I would like particular kinds of info or coordination, we deliver that in. So whether it is particular police info, and so forth.,we deliver that in, we mix individuals.

We attempt to arrange since you do not wish to swarm a company that’s being hacked. That is actually off the dimensions. Seven totally different organizations every asking a selected query for his or her means. It really isn’t useful. However we attempt to assist. And I feel that they’ve, uh, actually appreciated our assist.

DTR: Have they recovered from it now?

HdV: I can’t focus on it.

DTR: Are you able to characterize how severe an assault it was?

HdV: I gained’t characterize it as a medium, small or massive factor, and I am not capable of remark about that. Hacking the ministry of no matter is unhealthy. Hacking the ANWB or the soccer affiliation is unhealthy. There’s so many unhealthy ones that I can’t say that is worse than the opposite.

However for any group, it is not a great factor if issues occur in such a case.