NATO Crossed Swords 2026 adds AI agents to cyber operations training
Original title: NATO’s Crossed Swords Exercise Brings AI Agents Into Cyber Operations Training
More than 250 people from over 40 countries in Tallinn practice timing cyber effects to kinetic action within minutes.
The NATO CCDCOE opened Crossed Swords 2026 in Tallinn, Estonia, with the execution phase running through Friday. Military cyber operators, threat hunters, forensics experts and command staff practice synchronizing offensive and defensive cyber effects with kinetic and special-operations action. A new track has participants build, deploy and assess AI agents on locally hosted AI and, for the first time, OpenAI’s Daybreak cyber defense offering, while civilian partners help fold critical-infrastructure protection into plans.
- Participation has roughly doubled since 2022, when about 120 people from 24 countries took part.
- Last year’s edition had 240 participants from about 40 nations.
- Over 20 industry, academic and NGO organizations support the drill, including Bitdefender, ESET, Elastic, Mandiant and the ICRC.
- CCDCOE’s Locked Shields exercise involved more than 4,000 participants from 41 nations in 2026.
From the original article
2 min read at securityweek.com
The NATO CCDCOE exercise in Estonia introduces AI agents and OpenAI Daybreak into joint cyber and kinetic operations training. The post NATO’s Crossed Swords Exercise Brings AI Agents Into Cyber Operations Training appeared first on SecurityWeek.
By Eduard Kovacs · securityweek.com
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