Some 400 members of the armed forces carried out the first joint multi-domain Cyber Defense and Electronic Warfare exercise for the protection of critical infrastructures located in the Buenos Aires seaside resort of Las Toninas.
More than 90% of Argentina’s Internet traffic passes through there, circulating through seven fiber optic cablesIt was reported this Thursday.
Facing the beach, a complex surrounded by concrete block walls and rows of pine trees, is the headquarters of the “mooring station” operated by the Telsius company to connect Argentina with the rest of the world through the cables that they enter from the sea at a depth of just over a meter below the sand.
The banking systems, international trade, a large part of telecommunications, energy infrastructure, health services and food production depend on the operation of this complex.yes; To test the capacities to protect this critical infrastructure, the Joint Cyber Defense Command designed an exercise in which the “Red” country, which illegally occupies the “Isla del Este”, physically and electronically attacks the station mooring of the “Blue” country.
The usual tranquility of Las Toninas in November was modified since last Monday by the deployment of some 400 troops from different units of the three armed forces who set up a mobile command post within the earth station complex while also deploying logistical facilities and a camp in other parts of the town.
Photos: Victoria Egurza
The few visitors to the beaches of Las Toninas were surprised by the presence of the Argentine Navy patrol boat “Piedrabuena” a few hundred meters from the coast, while the low-altitude overflights of the IA-63 attack and training aircraft “Pampa III” of the Air Force caused everyone to look up at the sky in each fast pass of the ships.
This exercise, which began to be planned before the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, in which the North Sea gas pipelines were disabled, suggests that the “Red” country seeks to limit or disable the management capacities and productive activities of the country ” Azul”, through a multi-domain maneuver combining attacks for denial of the digital domain with the disabling of the mooring station.
Exercises with simulated situations
In the simulated situation, the “Piedrabuena” detected the approach of a small vessel to the area through which the cables pass on the seabed and sent a team of tactical divers to intercept it; Simultaneously, the radars identified an enemy aircraft approaching that point, and the “Pampa III” were summoned to repel the incursion.
In the exercise it was established that the enemy aircrafts were able to evade the shots from the “Pampas”, and the final defense of the complex was in charge of anti-aircraft batteries of the Argentine Army and units of the Marine Infantry equipped with RBS-70 portable missile launchers; In addition, the brand new mobile Cyber Defense units were also deployed, vans equipped with electronic systems capable of protecting the telecommunications of the mobile command units deployed by large combat units, which were acquired through the National Defense Fund (Fondef). ).
During your site visit, Defense Minister Jorge Taianaaffirmed that “this exercise seeks to focus on our capabilities to protect, neither more nor less, than 90% of Internet traffic throughout the country, which makes this complex a critical infrastructure for the functioning of the State and for All society”.
“This is a joint operation of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force because recent conflicts show that this type of attack occurs simultaneously on several planes, not only through the Internet, but also in the radio space and in the case of the enemy built for this exercise, one that can also project force from the sea”indicated.
The official added that “it is not only about exercising the joint work of the three forces, but also about how all aspects of an operation are integrated simultaneously in cyberspace and here, at the docking station.”
New scenarios to receive attacks
The joint commander of Cyberdefense, Brigadier General Aníbal Intini, pointed out that “when talking about the Internet, a common sense is installed that everything is in the cloud, or of a certain intangibility, but the truth is that for these communications to work there are a very specific infrastructure with submarine cables that connect all the continents and that in recent conflicts have shown that they can be targeted to limit the capabilities of a target”.
In Las Toninas, we monitored the development of the first joint Cyber Defense and Electronic Warfare exercise to protect critical infrastructures. Deployed in the air, sea and land, the Armed Forces are training to defend the mooring station for the internet submarine cable. pic.twitter.com/IiziQywqDb
— Jorge Taiana (@JorgeTaiana) November 17, 2022
About, the head of Cyber Defense of the Argentine Army, Colonel Luis Guimbel, assured that until fifteen years ago any theater of operations had a terrestrial, a naval, an air and a space layer; but with the irruption of the internet that is already completely diffuse and today we find ourselves with hacktivist groups, bands that kidnap data to ask for reward, groups financed by national States or that are part of them, and with which it is not hacking, but also of disinformation campaigns such as those that disseminate false news through text messages warning of alleged failures in the banking system, or interventions in television signals, or dissemination of personal emails from different personalities”.
Led by the Joint Cyber Defense Command, the operation began last Monday and seeks to continue the development of the capabilities of the Armed Forces aimed at mitigating current and future threats.
This exercise has, among its priorities, the training and integration of cyber defense and electronic warfare fractions at a joint level, achieving convergence and synchronization among themselves and with the operations of the other domains (land, maritime and aerospace), during the Protection of critical infrastructure.
It also seeks to promote the updating and preparation of specific and joint operating procedures, obtaining experiences and lessons learned to be taken into account in the preparation of joint and specific doctrine publications, verifying the operation of the technical means provided in the different Armed Forces and their interoperability, the verification and increase of the current level of training of the factions, and the visibility of the problem of protection of critical infrastructures.
Together with Taiana, the head of the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, Lieutenant General Juan Martín Paleo; the head of the Navy, Admiral Julio Guardia; and the Chief of Staff of the Defense Ministry, Héctor Mazzei, among other civil and military authorities.
