February 15, 2019

ICDS “Resilient Ukraine” Team Develops Research Tool to Identify Communications Gaps and Threats

Dmitri Teperik, Ivo Juurvee and Grigori Senkiv of the ICDS “Resilient Ukraine” team developed, together with some 20 Ukrainian and Estonian experts, a research tool for identifying gaps in and threats to information, communications and cybersecurity during a workshop in Odessa, Ukraine on 26–27 January.

The main objective of the workshop was to explore methods for studying the topical vulnerabilities in south-eastern Ukraine.

Teperik said: “Given their geography and present societal weakness, the regional and local levels are equally crucial as an operational environment for detecting and counteracting malicious activities and hostile operations against Ukraine in virtual as well as physical space”.

Experts with strong professional backgrounds in information security, communications security, applied linguistics, social psychology, religious studies, cryptology and cybersecurity were divided into three thematic teams, in which they discussed different visions of solutions to the problems. A multidisciplinary approach was then used to bring the results together.

The Resilient Ukraine team will conduct a comprehensive study based on the developed methodology. The study will clarify what practical problems in information, communications and cyber security could be resolved together with local partners in Ukraine.

The development cooperation programme “Resilient Ukraine” is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It promotes Estonian experience in developing and implementing a comprehensive model for competencies related to strategic communication and cyber and information security. It also supports the implementation of Ukraine’s decentralisation reforms through human capacity development for informational resilience.