Pierluigi Paganini April 15, 2019

Locked Shields 2019 – France wins, the world’s biggest and most advanced international cyber drills organized by NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence (CCDCOE). 

The international live-fire cyber defence exercise Locked Shields 2019
(LS19) took place on April 8-12 in Tallinn, Estonia, and the figures behind this important competition are important.

Locked Shields 2019 is organised by NATO CCDCOE in cooperation with the Estonian Defence Forces, the Finnish Defence Forces, the United States European Command, National Security Research Institute of the Republic of Korea and TalTech. Many industry partners also supported the cyber drill, including Siemens AG, Elisa, Cybernetica, Cisco, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, Arctic Security, Bittium, Clarified Security, Iptron, Bytelife, STM, BHC Laboratory, Bolt and many others.

More than a thousand experts from Cyber Defense from 30 different countries participated in the cyber drill.

“This year the exercise evolved around 4000 virtualised systems that had to take more than 2500 attacks. In addition to maintaining more than 150 complex IT systems per team, the Blue Teams had to be efficient in reporting incidents, executing strategic decisions and solving forensic, legal and media challenges.” said Lauri Luht, Head of Cyber Exercises at NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). “Protection of critical infrastructure is essential to ensure the efficient operation of both military and civilian organisations, it is the foundation of our modern digital lifestyle,”

Like in the past edition, the Locked Shields 2019 exercise sees a fictional island nation named Berylia, which is holding national elections, targeted by massive and coordinated cyber attacks.

The participants have to defend the infrastructure from the cyber attacks to the drills act as national cyber rapid reaction teams that help Berylia handle the incident.

The Blue Teams were tasked to preserve the operations of more than 150 complex IT systems per team, reporting incidents, executing strategic decisions and solving forensic, legal and media challenges.

The cyberattacks cause severe disruptions in multiple areas, including
the electric power grid, water purification systems, and 4G public safety networks.

The team from France won the cyber defence exercise Locked Shields 2019 Czech and Swedish team take second and third place respectively.

“The winning team excelled in availability, usability and providing services for the customer,” Luht added.

This year, the cyber defence exercise highlighted the growing need to enhance dialogue and cooperation between technical experts, civil and military participants and decision-making levels.

The exercise addressed first and foremost the protection of critical infrastructure from even more sophisticated reflecting real-world cyber threats,

“While the aim of the tech game is to maintain the operation of various systems under intense pressure, the strategic part addresses the capability to understand national coordination mechanisms, law enforcement options and strategic communication,” CCDCOE explained.

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Locked Shields 2019, hacking)

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