Intelligence Corps specialists have ramped up efforts to shield Army exercises from hostile interference.
Having trialled the initiative for two years, counter-intelligence experts from 2nd Military Intelligence Battalion will now regularly deploy alongside units undergoing training packages both on UK soil and overseas.
Working in teams of between two and 20, they will be providing location-specific expertise on the risk posed by espionage, sabotage, organised crime and personal security lapses such as phishing attempts on troops’ mobiles.
The move comes amid a growing number of hostile activities against Nato members, which Western intelligence services have attributed to Russia.
A statement to Soldier from 2 MI Bn said personnel would be deploying on a number of serials over the course of 2025, starting with a 1st (UK) Division package – Exercise Steadfast Dart – which kicks off next month across various parts of Europe.
“They will conduct overt anti-surveillance measures and give advice on vulnerabilities to the training area, to the camp or to the personnel when they’re off base,” it said.
“We will also help adapt the Force posture and protection measures that are in place throughout the exercise.
“If you look in the news, you can see the threats that we’re getting from our adversaries, where they’re trying to target Nato through sabotage activity or arson – or even reputational damage by bringing its forces into disrepute.
“That’s also something that hostile states are very interested in doing. And when you have the movement of a few thousand troops across Europe for an exercise, their opportunity to do that drastically increases – not necessarily by being able to access kit or set something on fire but, for example, by picking a fight in a bar, filming it and putting it out there.”
The battalion’s deployed teams would be scaled up or down depending on the type and location of the training, the statement added.
Further support would be provided by colleagues back in the UK conducting defensive internet monitoring to identify tagging activity with the potential to cause negative publicity.
But the battalion stressed that individual Servicemen and women must also be mindful of their own personal security by staying alert when out and about in public and adhering to local rules on mobile devices, which often call for smartphones and watches to be disabled for the duration of an exercise.
“We see a huge increase in phishing messages on WhatsApp and Signal outside of the UK, where the senders are trying to start a conversation,” its statement continued. “So people need to understand their immediate actions on receiving a text.
“Block the number, screenshot the chat, report it and then delete it.
“That kind of thing is really important because then we can capture the full scale of the problem and have more effect.”
