How the Government Is Training for the Cyberspace Battle
The government is taking cybersecurity very seriously.
A new training tool has been developed to train security professionals and government-employed hackers to defend the United States in the event of a cyberattack. CyberCity, the virtual city created by Sans, 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.” Beyond the physical components, CyberCity developers have included an array of dynamic digital objects to make the scenario as real as possible:
To those who participate in the practice missions, the digital activity will look and feel real. The “city” will have more than 15,000 “people” who have e-mail accounts, work passwords and bank deposits. The power plant has employees. The hospital has patients. The coffeeshop customers will come and go, using the insecure WiFi system, just as in real life.
To reinforce the real-world consequences of cyberattacks, CyberCity will have a tabletop scale model of the town, including an electric train, a water tower and a miniature traffic light that will show when they have been attacked.
Read the article CyberCity allows government hackers to train for attacks from The Washington Post.
In the past, the government has created training tools like this for soldiers on the ground. While this proves just how serious the government is about cybersecurity, it could also point to concerns about our current security, according to Ed Skoudis, founder of the company that is developing CyberCity:
“The problem is the bad guys are getting better much faster than we are,” Skoudis said. “We don’t want to fall further behind on this.”
Read more about why cybersecurity is important in government IT.
