NEC Enhances Japan’s Cyber Defense via Locked Shields 2025 Participation

NEC Corporation has once again showcased its growing role in international cyber defense by participating in NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence’s (CCDCOE) flagship exercise, Locked Shields 2025. The Japanese tech giant contributed advanced command-and-control (C2) systems and real-time threat analysis tools to bolster Japan’s defensive posture amid rising regional tensions and global cyber threats.

Locked Shields 2025: The World’s Largest Live-Fire Cyber Exercise

Organized annually by the NATO CCDCOE in Tallinn, Estonia, Locked Shields is the most complex and largest live-fire cybersecurity exercise globally. In 2025, the event involved over 4,000 participants from more than 40 countries operating across distributed networks to simulate a coordinated defense against sophisticated nation-state-level cyberattacks.

The exercise tests national teams’ ability to defend critical infrastructure—such as power grids, satellite communications (SATCOM), financial systems, and military command chains—under pressure. Teams must respond to a barrage of technical intrusions while managing legal implications and strategic messaging in a simulated crisis environment.

Japan has participated in previous iterations since becoming a CCDCOE contributing participant in 2018. However, this year marked NEC’s most prominent role yet as a core technology provider for the Japanese national team.

NEC’s Role: Real-Time Threat Detection and C2 Integration

NEC deployed its proprietary cybersecurity platform integrating artificial intelligence (AI)-driven threat detection with secure C2 interfaces tailored for military-grade operational environments. According to company statements reviewed by MiliVox Editorial Engine, NEC provided:

A real-time network monitoring system capable of detecting anomalies across hybrid IT/OT environments
A secure C2 dashboard enabling rapid decision-making under contested conditions
Simulated malware analysis tools leveraging behavioral analytics

This suite allowed the Japanese team to rapidly identify breach vectors during red-team attacks on simulated energy infrastructure and respond with coordinated countermeasures. NEC engineers also supported integration with NATO-compatible data exchange protocols such as STANAG-compliant formats and Link-16-adjacent interfaces for joint situational awareness.

Strategic Implications for Japan’s National Cyber Policy

Japan’s participation in Locked Shields comes amid heightened concerns over regional threats from China and North Korea. In December 2023, Tokyo revised its National Security Strategy (NSS), emphasizing “active cyber defense” capabilities—a significant shift from its traditionally reactive posture.

The Japanese Ministry of Defense (MoD) is investing heavily in expanding its Cyber Defense Command (CDC), which grew from approximately 540 personnel in FY2023 to an expected force of over 1,000 by FY2027. Exercises like Locked Shields serve as proving grounds for these new capabilities while fostering interoperability with NATO allies despite Japan not being a formal member state.

NEC’s involvement aligns with broader MoD efforts to leverage domestic industry leaders for dual-use technologies applicable across civilian critical infrastructure protection and military-grade operations. The company is also part of Japan’s “Defense Technology Strategy,” released in April 2024, which prioritizes AI-enabled ISR systems and resilient comms architectures.

Civil-Military Integration: A Core Tenet of Japan’s Cyber Resilience

The collaboration between NEC and Japanese defense authorities exemplifies Tokyo’s push toward civil-military integration (CMI) in cyberspace—mirroring trends seen among other U.S.-aligned nations. By embedding commercial-grade innovation into military exercises like Locked Shields, Japan accelerates technology maturation while stress-testing its ecosystem under realistic adversarial conditions.

This approach also supports whole-of-nation resilience objectives outlined by Japan’s National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity (NISC). NISC has emphasized public-private partnerships as critical enablers of national security since revising its Basic Act on Cybersecurity in late 2023.

NATO-Japan Cooperation on the Rise Despite Non-Membership Status

Though not a NATO member or formal ally under Article V obligations, Japan has deepened ties with the alliance through frameworks such as the Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme (IPCP). Participation in CCDCOE activities—including both technical exercises like Crossed Swords and strategic wargaming—has expanded steadily since Tokyo joined as a contributing partner nation.

This year’s Locked Shields saw increased coordination between Japanese operators and European counterparts on shared threat intelligence workflows using structured formats like STIX/TAXII. According to sources familiar with the exercise architecture, NEC-supported modules helped streamline cross-border alerting mechanisms during simulated attacks on transnational banking networks—a scenario modeled after real-world ransomware campaigns targeting SWIFT infrastructure.

Outlook: Toward Autonomous Defensive Systems?

Looking ahead, NEC is reportedly exploring autonomous response mechanisms that could be integrated into future iterations of exercises like Locked Shields or deployed operationally within MoD networks. These would include AI agents capable of executing predefined containment actions based on anomaly scoring thresholds—a concept aligned with zero-trust architectures increasingly adopted by allied militaries.

The company is also investing R&D resources into post-quantum cryptography solutions for secure battlefield communications—an area highlighted by both U.S. DoD and EU agencies as critical before the end of this decade due to advances in quantum computing threats against current encryption standards such as RSA-2048.

Conclusion

NEC’s expanded role at Locked Shields 2025 underscores both technological maturity and strategic alignment with Japan’s evolving cyber doctrine. As geopolitical tensions intensify across East Asia—and cyberspace becomes an increasingly contested domain—collaborative exercises like these offer invaluable opportunities to validate defensive concepts under fire while enhancing interoperability with key partners across Europe and beyond.