The Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS) participated in Exercise Locked Shields (XLS) 2025, an annual multinational cyber defence exercise conducted by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). This year’s exercise, held from 5 to 9 May 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia saw the participation of around 4,000 personnel from 41 nations.

The DIS’s newly inaugurated Defence Cyber Command led a combined cyber defence team alongside the German Armed Forces’ Cyber and Information Domain Service (CIDS). DIS and MINDEF participants included Operationally Ready National Servicemen (NSmen), and were joined by personnel from other national agencies, including the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore. XLS 2025 provided participants with realistic scenarios to practise the protection of national IT systems and critical infrastructure under a severe cyberattack, and crisis management responses following such an attack.

Military Expert 6 William Teo, Team Lead from the DIS, said, “XLS is a valuable opportunity for cyber defenders to train their skillsets and exchange perspectives, and we are grateful for the chance to participate in XLS again with our CIDS counterparts. Our joint team demonstrated strong partnership and worked closely together in the exercise, which is testament of our close collaboration on the cyber front.”

Major Nico Hamann, Deputy Team Lead from the German CIDS, said, “The DIS team displayed a high level of technical competency and professionalism during the exercise, and worked well together with our CIDS personnel. I am very happy that our joint team was able to train together, learn from each other and forge lasting friendships.”

The DIS’s participation in XLS highlights the importance of defending critical infrastructure and the national digital backbone. The DIS’s participation in this exercise with the German CIDS underscores the strong and substantive bilateral defence relations between Singapore and Germany.