Lithuania's first national cyber security exercise Cyber shield 2016 has started on Tuesday.

During the three-day exercise, more than 40 of the country's strategic state and cyber authorities will practice how to respond to cyber incidents.

According to Lithuania's defense ministry which holds the cyber training, the cyber exercise is aimed at enhancing cooperation between the country's institutions and training its representatives.

"So that they could have experience necessary for countering a real-life cyber threat," a defense ministry statement said, quoting minister Juozas Olekas as saying.

"A real-life cyber threat" emerged on the first day of the exercise with reports by local media that hackers have attacked the website of the Constitution exam, a civic initiative held in Lithuania annually for the tenth year. In the exercise, the authority that holds the Constitution exam managed to counter the attack, according to website 15min.lt.

Olekas noted that cyber threats and attacks in Lithuania "occur increasingly more often and in more sophisticated forms."

According to Lithuania's Communications regulatory authority, last year, more than 40,000 cyber attacks, or 15 percent more than in 2014, were registered in Lithuania, a country with a population of less than 3 million. Cyber attacks in Lithuania affect around 100 state institutions, private companies or individuals on a daily basis, reported Lithuanian national radio LRT.

To tame rising cyber threats and ensure cyber space protection at a national level, Lithuania opened the National cyber security center two months ago.

The Baltic state has stepped up its defense capabilities including cyber security amid geopolitical tensions in the Eastern Europe since the conflicts in the Eastern Ukraine in 2014. Endit

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