Baltic infrastructure protection drills test pace of joint response

The SeaSEC Data2Sea 2026 exercise concludes Friday after two weeks of testing how Nordic and regional actors detect and respond to threats against critical maritime infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. 

Participants from Denmark, Norway and Sweden - alongside Germany and the Netherlands - focused on risks to subsea power cables, offshore installations and port infrastructure, the Danish it-company Systematic said in a press release.

- This type of exercise tests whether actors can establish a shared situational picture quickly enough to act when a crisis emerges, said Lasse Krabbesmark, Product Manager at Systematic and a former naval officer.

Systematic contributed its command-and-control system, SitaWare Maritime, which enabled a shared maritime situational picture across units and countries.

The exercise was built around realistic scenarios involving simultaneous threats. One scenario focused on protecting a subsea power cable, requiring participants to detect, track and report suspicious activity before escalation. 

Other scenarios addressed the protection of offshore platforms and port infrastructure against intrusion and disruption.

The protection of subsea infrastructure is an increasing security priority in the Nordic region and Europe, where critical assets are exposed to fast-moving and multi-directional threats.