NATO cyber defense center in Estonia staging world's biggest exercise in cyber defense

TALLINN- The Tallinn-based NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCD COE) is staging the world's biggest international training exercise in cyber defense in collaboration with several NATO and partner nations as well as technology companies.

Altogether some 800 people from 25 countries are to take part in the exercise, Locked Shields 2017, that is taking place from April 24 to 28, spokespeople for CCD COE said. The scale of the exercise this year, as well as the number of technologies, networks, and devices involved will be significantly bigger this year than in previous years.

"The Locked Shields exercise is more complicated, bigger and more intense this year than ever before. The new level is necessary to offer challenges worthy of the improving skills of the teams of the 19 participating countries and NATO. Besides many new technological elements, simultaneously with the classic technical exercise, a strategic play will take place where policy advisers can practice decision-making processes within the framework of solving cyber incidents," head of CCD COE Sven Sakkov said.

According to the scenario of the exercise, Team Blue must ensure the functioning and principal services of the military base of a fictitious country at a time when its electrical networks, drones, command structures, and other systems come under attack. The scenario suggests that at least 2,500 attacks will be carried out.

Even though the main aim of the exercise is to perfect the participants' technical skills, a strategic component will be added this year to offer training opportunities also to political and legal experts.

CCD COE has staged Locked Shields exercises since 2010.

The contributors to the 2017 edition of the exercise are the defense forces of Estonia, Finland and Sweden, the British armed forces, U.S. European Command and Tallinn University of Technology. Of businesses, Siemens AG, Thread Systems, Cyber Test Systems, Clarified Security, Iptron, Bytelife, BHC Laboratory, openvpn.net, Guardtime and several others will take part.