Real-World Cyber City Used To Train Cyber Warriors

Orome1 writes "NetWars CyberCity is a small-scale city located close by the New Jersey Turnpike complete with a bank, hospital, water tower, train system, electric power grid, and a coffee shop. It was developed to teach cyber warriors from the U.S. military how online actions can have kinetic effects. Developed in response to a challenge by U.S. military cyber warriors, NetWars CyberCity is an intense defensive training program organized around missions. 'We've built over eighteen missions, and each of them challenges participants to devise strategies and employ tactics to thwart computer attacks that would cause significant real-world damage,' commented Ed Skoudis, SANS Instructor and NetWars CyberCity Director."

Re:Doing it wrong

[Shoten]

They have it wrong. It's on a tabletop. The goal of NetWars is to have a predefined and cheap proving ground for doing cyber war games, essentially. It doesn't require a literal city. And the tabletop thing is for the "ooh and ahhh" factor with brass.

From the recent SANS NewsBite entry about it:

The Air Force's NetWars cyber simulator won the 2011 National Cybersecurity Innovation Award presented by Howard Schmidt, then White House cyber advisor. CyberCity is the next generation of NetWars. Low cost cybersecurity flight simulators have been the "holy grail" in advanced cybersecurity training for the military, banks and the most advanced consulting firms for more than a decade. Ed Skoudis' team and the Air Force created the first affordable cyber range.