News - Chicago Summit Declaration

Chapter concerning cyber issues, from the Chicago Summit Declaration, issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Chicago on 20 May 2012. 

"Cyber attacks continue to increase significantly in number and evolve in sophistication and complexity.  We reaffirm the cyber defence commitments made at the Lisbon Summit.  Following Lisbon, last year we adopted a Cyber Defence Concept, Policy, and Action Plan, which are now being implemented.  Building on NATO’s existing capabilities, the critical elements of the NATO Computer Incident Response Capability (NCIRC) Full Operational Capability (FOC), including protection of most sites and users, will be in place by the end of 2012.  We have committed to provide the resources and complete the necessary reforms to bring all NATO bodies under centralised cyber protection, to ensure that enhanced cyber defence capabilities protect our collective investment in NATO.  We will further integrate cyber defence measures into Alliance structures and procedures and, as individual nations, we remain committed to identifying and delivering national cyber defence capabilities that strengthen Alliance collaboration and interoperability, including through NATO defence planning processes.  We will develop further our ability to prevent, detect, defend against, and recover from cyber attacks.  To address the cyber security threats and to improve our common security, we are committed to engage with relevant partner nations on a case-by-case basis and with international organisations, inter alia the EU, as agreed, the Council of Europe, the UN and the OSCE, in order to increase concrete cooperation.  We will also take full advantage of the expertise offered by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia".