Today’s soldiers deployed at the frontline are for all intents and purposes carrying a spy in their pocket. “Opponents, for instance in the war in Ukraine, are effectively using smartphone signals to locate and eliminate enemy troops,” Ciparisse explains. “But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how technology is being used in conflicts. Think of the sheer number of drones entering hostile airspace, including our own.”
No silver bullet
The military use of this technology is constantly evolving. “At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, we often saw the Russians conducting joint operations involving the simultaneous use of physical and cyber capabilities in strikes,” says Ciparisse. “Today, that’s far less common, as Russian units are finding it increasingly difficult to access enemy cyber environments, making such operations less effective. The notion that cyberattacks are the absolute ‘silver bullet’ of modern warfare, as many believed a few years ago, simply doesn’t hold. We will always face combined, multidimensional attacks.”
With cyber becoming an integral part of modern military conflict, it is now recognised as a fully fledged attack surface within Defence, with dedicated capabilities assigned to it. “Building up the Cyber Command within the Belgian Defence Forces is a long-term process,” says Ciparisse. “An important next step for us is deploying cyber experts to the other forces (Land, Air, Navy, Medical Service) facing similar challenges. This reflects the reality that our current-day defence systems are interconnected.”
Force through partnerships
Cyber defence, like any form of telecommunications, operates across three interconnected layers: the virtual, the logical and the physical. “It’s not just about software or virtual networks,” Ciparisse clarifies. “It also involves broader systems, physical cables and hardware infrastructures. Attacks on any of these – whether a cut cable, a hack, a social media disinformation campaign… – fall within our scope. A strong response must account for every layer.”
But addressing such a broad spectrum of challenges can only be done through close and active collaboration. “Our motto is cyber force through partnerships. In practice, this means we’re building on the philosophy of the Cyber Security Coalition, which has long been part of Belgium’s cyber ecosystem. In this era of hybrid warfare and lightning-fast technological acceleration, that is the only viable path forward,” Ciparisse emphasises.
This is why Cyber Command’s operations are woven into the fabric of wider society, notably through the Belgian National Resilience Plan. “In practice, we work as closely as possible with the police, the federal prosecutor’s office and government agencies via the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB), which serves as the first point of contact in times of crisis. Together, we aim to develop the most effective threat analysis possible. Under the umbrella of the National Security Council, we consolidate as much intelligence as we can.”
Belgium can thus be considered a front-runner in the fight against military cyber threats. “This was demonstrated when the country diplomatically called out China after successfully attributing cyberattacks to Chinese actors. Many countries would hide behind the umbrella of NATO or the EU in such a case, but we didn’t. That earned us considerable international respect,” says Ciparisse. He also points to the European Space Agency’s Cybersecurity Centre in Redu. “For the military domain, that’s of major significance. All military communications depend on space infrastructure, and we fully support the expansion of this centre and the ambition to turn it into a true cybersecurity valley,” he concludes.
