Defence Cyber Command

The Netherlands Defence organisation has the intention of defending its digital environment as robustly as possible. It therefore established Defence Cyber Command, which is part of the Royal Netherlands Army. This command is responsible for the cyber security of the Netherlands Defence organisation and its partners.

Defensive, intelligence and offensive

Defence Cyber Command concentrates on 3 areas of cyber security:

  • Defensive capabilities: all digital systems must be secure against attacks and espionage.
  • Intelligence capabilities: the armed forces must be aware of threats in the digital environment. Those threats can come both from within the organisation's own systems (weak spots and 'back doors') and from external parties.
  • Offensive capabilities: the armed forces sees offensive cyber capabilities as digital resources the purpose of which is to influence or pre-empt the actions of an opponent by infiltrating computers, computer networks and weapons and sensor systems so as to influence information and systems. The Netherlands Defence organisation deploys offensive digital resources exclusively against military targets.