Not a year old, and US Cyber Command has run a Full test to see if it could send a Cyber attack! the Test was called “Operation Cyber Flag”, but you’ll have to hit the Jump!
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“Cyber Flag, over a week’s time at the Air Force Red Flag Facility at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, and through a virtual environment pulled in participants from other locations, according to a press statement.
Three hundred participated in the exercise to practice their cyber defense skills on a private virtual network in which participants were split into two sides that engaged in offensive and defensive cyber tactics, said Col. Rivers J. Johnson of the command’s public affairs office.
He said there were two cyber teams–the “good guys” and the “bad guys”–and those on the opposing forces tried to infiltrate the Cyber Command’s networks with malware and other forms of network intrusion.
“There were a variety of scenarios based on what we think an adversary would do in real world events and real world time,” Johnson said. “It was a great exercise.”
Event participants held daily briefings on the day’s events and assessed the performance of Cyber Command to defend against attacks.
Johnson said that although the Cyber Command was not always 100% successful in mitigating attacks, the majority of threats were quickly identified and deflected “in a timely manner.”
Cyber Command chief Gen. Alexander agreed that the exercise showed that his command has developed effective cyber-security defense capabilities. In a press statement, he deemed the exercise a success, saying it “exceeded” his expectations and showed a team effort, with respective cyber commands from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines also participating.
“There was tremendous participation from the service components that included active, guard, reserve, civilian and contractors as well as from the combatant commands and DoD agencies,” he said.
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