Photo By Sgt. Jennifer Lena | Lt. Col. Martinez briefs VIP guests visiting the Mountain Defender Cyber Exercise...... read more read more
Service members and civilian professionals looking to advance their knowledge of cyber security gathered for The Mountain Defense Exercise at Regis University Denver Technological Center Campus Aug. 21.
The exercise was designed to give attendants a chance to recognize the signs of a cyber attack, learn what avenues hackers might use to gain access to protected networks, and to build community relationships.
"The purpose of this event is to build a public and private partnership,” said Lt. Col. Rhodes, the team chief of the Colorado National Guard’s defensive cyber operations element. “The goal is to all work together for better cyber defense technology."
The Colorado National Guard partnered with Regis University, the Department of Homeland Security, and a mixture of local and state governments to bring the exercise to life. The event occurs twice a year, and the attendants are as diverse as the sponsors.
“We have a large variety of people, we have very skilled technical people, program managers, project managers and we also have people who are just learning it,” said Rhodes. “Everyone is trying to learn how to better defend their cyber based asset.”
During the exercise, the trainees split in to two groups in different classrooms. One group is instructed on how to attempt to gain access to a web server and the other group is assigned to defend it. The teams would then switch roles.
To do this, the sponsors first created a fake web server for the students to manipulate.
"Regis has a virtual range capability and so we basically built a miniature power company that has all of its web servers, and we've built a physical asset that simulates human-machine interface,” said Rhodes. “The idea is to defend that within the exercise.”
Each session, leadership tries to highlight a different potential infrastructural area of cyber security.
“This event’s focus is power, the next time we’re thinking will probably be water and dams,” said Rhodes. “There’s so much critical infrastructure in the state of Colorado so we need to look at all the different places that people don’t normally think there would be a cyber effect.”
Meanwhile, the students get the opportunity to see multiple perspectives of the cyber world.
"The interesting part about it was recognizing the different types of attacks and seeing what the other team was trying to do to escalate their advantage,” said Warrant Officer Escobar, a participant in the Mountain Defense Cyber Exercise. “The greatest learning point was being able to witness what they were doing on the host machine. That was the greatest value."
| Date Taken: | 08.21.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 08.24.2016 11:07 |
| Story ID: | 207999 |
| Location: | GREENWOOD VILLAGE, COLORADO, US |
| Web Views: | 128 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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