Dr. Haider Abbas, Director General National CERT, delivered a keynote address at Pakistan Navy War College as part of its Executive Leadership Course, engaging senior officers and strategic leaders from the Armed Forces in a discourse on the evolving dimensions of warfare. His talk, titled “Next Generation Warfare Tactics,” examined the transformation of traditional warfare paradigms into the cyber and hybrid domains that are increasingly defining contemporary conflict landscapes.
During his address, Dr. Abbas underscored the growing importance of cybersecurity and the role of national preparedness in countering complex digital threats. He explained how the line between physical and digital battlefields continues to blur, with adversaries now leveraging cyber tools for espionage, sabotage, and strategic disruption. Dr. Abbas drew attention to the pressing need for Pakistan’s defense ecosystem to adapt by integrating cyber resilience into national security strategy.
He stated that while conventional military capabilities remain essential, the effectiveness of a modern national defense strategy depends equally on securing the cyber infrastructure that supports intelligence, communication, logistics, and critical systems. As digital technologies become more embedded in operational frameworks, adversaries exploit vulnerabilities not through force but through code and connectivity.
Dr. Abbas stressed that the transition to hybrid warfare requires not only technical upgrades but also strategic cultural shifts, including the development of cyber situational awareness across defense institutions. He highlighted the pivotal role of National CERT in this regard, describing its ongoing initiatives to enhance national cyber readiness through incident response capabilities, training programs, and inter-agency coordination.
He also pointed out the need to foster a culture of cybersecurity across both public and private sectors, noting that national cyber resilience is a shared responsibility. As the nation’s central response team for cybersecurity incidents, National CERT continues to work closely with relevant stakeholders to protect critical information assets and digital sovereignty.
The session at Pakistan Navy War College provided a timely platform for reinforcing the strategic significance of cybersecurity in the country’s broader defense architecture. By engaging military leadership in these critical discussions, National CERT is aligning national security thinking with the realities of emerging digital threats.
Dr. Abbas’s participation reflects a growing recognition across the Armed Forces of the centrality of cyber power in ensuring national sovereignty. His message echoed the urgency of equipping Pakistan’s leadership with the foresight and frameworks necessary to anticipate and counter threats in the modern battlespace, where data, networks, and digital infrastructure have become as crucial as land, sea, and air.
Source: LinkedIn
