“Locked Shields”, the world’s largest and most demanding live cyber defense exercise, took place from May 7 to 8. It was organized by the Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, Estonia. More than 4,000 participants from 41 nations took part in this exercise, which also celebrated its 15th anniversary. The international participants were divided into 17 so-called “Blue Teams”, which competed against each other in a points competition.
Realistic cyber defense
The exercise scenarios were based on current geopolitical challenges and focused on a fictitious conflict between the states of Berylia and Crimsonia. The focus was on vital services such as power supply, water and 5G infrastructure as well as military systems for air defense and tactical communication.
“Locked Shields” provided an extremely realistic environment for the exercise scenarios, in which national and international cyber defense teams had to defend civilian and military IT systems as well as critical infrastructures against more than 8,000 coordinated cyber attacks. The virtualized systems were specifically attacked by “Red Teams” in order to evaluate the reaction speed and adaptability of the “defenders”.
Strong Austrian participation in Blue Team 14
In addition to technical challenges, the participants had to make strategic decisions under time pressure, taking into account legal, communicative and political aspects. Particular attention was paid to dealing with incidents in the information environment – for example in social media – as well as the legal assessment of cyber incidents. Forensic analyses for investigating and responding to cyber incidents were also a central part of the exercise. One of the special innovations of this year’s edition was a newly designed communication platform that supported crisis communication and information work.
Austria actively participated in the exercise with a highly qualified team as part of Blue Team 14, supported by 35 experts from the Netherlands and six members of the Vermont National Guard (USA). The Austrian team was supplemented by 40 specialists from the field of critical infrastructure. It should be emphasized that the Austrian-led team in the field of strategic communication (StratCom) achieved an outstanding second place in the individual ranking.
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