Cross border cyber-attack simulation exercise hosted by GNCCB with colleagues from the PSNI

On October 4th and 5th 2023, the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau hosted colleagues from the PSNI Cyber Crime Centre, the National Cyber Security Centre and UK law enforcement partners to carry out a cross border cyber-attack simulation exercise.

The event was opened by Detective Superintendent Pat Ryan of the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau and Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan of the PSNI.

The event aimed to test the resilience of both agencies in their responses to a major cyber incident and identify learnings around closer cooperation and coordinated axons in investigating the growing threat from transnational cyber criminals.

Cybercrime is rapidly growing in complexity and frequency

Communicating between law enforcement partners and cyber security agencies is critical and joint training to test resilience is a clear goal of An Garda Síochána and necessary to share skills, knowledge and experience.

Both cyber units in An Garda Síochána and the PSNI will continue to develop clear communicating structures for sharing intelligence and informative quickly and efficiently, which includes response protocols in the event of a cross border cyber-attack against a critical infrastructure or a significant corporate network.

Speaking at the simulation exercise, Detective Superintendent – GNCCB, Pat Ryan said: Cybercrime has no borders and on that basis it’s important for law enforcement to work together for when a cyber-incident does occur. They can happen very quickly and the purpose of the exercise was to ensure that we have the right level of cooperation and protocols in place between both organisations”.

The PSNI’s Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan said:“Across the world of serious and organised crime, our partnership is incredibly important and we had all the various agencies and all the expertise in the room for this event. This simulation exercise was about testing what some cyber-attack scenarios may look like on an all-Island basis and then working out our best response, testing our response and ensuring that any glitches or challenges that we face, that we can iron them out now.”