Earlier this month, Panagiotis Bellonias and Alexandru Militaru, two cyber experts from Nexova, successfully took part in Cyber Fortress, Luxembourg’s largest national cyber defence exercise, in Luxembourg.
Cyber Fortress, held annually since 2021, brings together cyber specialists from Belgium, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and the European Union Cyber Rapid Response Teams (CRRT) to tackle real-time cyberattack simulations. With three competing teams, participants defend different network segments of critical infrastructure IT/OT systems against a high number of attacks in real time from the organiser’s Red Team.
Panagiotis joined the Industrial Control Systems team, bringing his expertise in penetration testing for critical infrastructures such as railways, airports and water facilities. In this high-stakes environment, he had to script, automate and spot vulnerabilities in real time.
Alexandru was part of the Windows team, working to secure systems under intense pressure. All the participants must react as a team to coordinate their actions, manage processes and respond effectively to incidents.
“It was a challenging exercise, based on a solid organisation. It mimicked with great accuracy a real-life scenario,” said Alexandru.
Beyond sharpening cyber defence skills, Cyber Fortress serves as preparation for NATO’s Locked Shields, the world’s largest live-fire cyber exercise, for which Alex and Panagiotis have been selected. This year, the Belgian team collaborates with Latvia and Luxembourg – a way to test interoperability between different teams and systems, and reinforce international cooperation in cybersecurity.
“It was a great experience – not just for testing technical skills, but for refining our understanding of the scenarios environment and improving our own cyber-range exercises,” said Panagiotis.
At Nexova, we push the boundaries of cyber resilience to protect critical systems across Europe. Hands-on participation in exercises like Cyber Fortress strengthens our ability to defend against tomorrow’s threats.