“Cyber security staff, just like troops, need regular training. The new Cyber Range will enable simulation of cyber-attacks of different levels in a safe closed environment thus improving the skills of the personnel maintaining Lithuania’s critical infrastructure to ensure security of the systems in their responsibility and at the same time, of Lithuania as a whole,” acting NKSC Director, Head of Cyber Security Management Division, Jonas Skardinskas says.
The Cyber Range is a controlled closed interactive environment where cyber security experts are able to enhance professional skills to detect and prevent cyber-attacks selected to correspond to the level of expertise of the training specialist without any harm done to the infrastructure in their responsibility.
The range will be available for staff of the National Defence System, Lithuania’s critical information infrastructure and state information resource managers and administrators, and foreign partners. The facility has been first put to test by NKSC personnel, and from July it is open for other cyber security entities as well. It is planned to provide the venue for testing professional expertise to approx. 250 cyber security experts until the end of the year.
Training at the Cyber Range will be accessible virtually from a room installed at the NKSC or remotely. Exercise participants will be able to test a number of tech scenarios encompassing the most usual cyber-attacks against Windows and Linux operating systems. They will also be able to compete against each other in CTF (Capture the Flag) game – find “flags” hidden in vulnerable programmes, systems or websites for points depending on the complexity of the task.
The Cyber Range will be also available to real-time team exercises where the Blue Teams defends against the Red Team’s attacks and protect the infrastructure units responsibility from being taken over.
There is also a separate toll to train expertise for defence against the known APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) groups.
Total value of the Cyber Range amounts to EUR 800,000.