Airbus signs eight-year contract with France's DGA for training cyber experts
French military personnel from a cyber-intervention group taking part in ‘DEFNETʼ 2025. (Ministry of the Armed Forces of France)
Airbus Defence and Space said in an 11 July press release that it had signed an eight-year contract with the French Directorate General of Armament (Direction Générale de lʼArmement: DGA) for the training of cyber-security experts in the French Armed Forces and Ministry of the Armed Forces.
The contract includes the development, production, and maintenance of training platforms and the development of cyber-defence training scenarios. France's Cyber Defence Academy of Cyber Defence Command (COMCYBER) will also be equipped with a training centre as part of the deal, according to the release. The centre will have dedicated courses to train different cyber specialists.
The Airbus training and exercises are set to cover malware attacks, denial of service, data theft, information manipulation, and disinformation on social media. Airbus is looking to collaborate with small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in artificial intelligence in order to develop its platform.
Between April and May 2023, France held its largest training exercise in decades, dubbed ‘Orionʼ (Operations for a Resilient, Integrating, high-intensity Oriented and New Army), with 19,000 military personnel from France, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The simulated large-scale multidomain operations were aimed at improving interoperability by developing scenarios in all domains including cyber, space, and electromagnetic, according to a 28 April 2023 NATO press release.
‘DEFNETʼ is a French military exercise focused on enhancing its cyber-warfare capabilities. It is led by COMCYBER, with the latest iteration taking place in March 2025 with members of the French Armed Forces training for “high-intensity cyber combat”, according to information on the COMCYBER website. Twenty simultaneous cyber incidents were used for training purposes.
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