Close to 1,000 participants flooded the Virginia National Guard State Military Reservation in Va. Beach for the longest-running and largest Department of Defense cyber defense exercise held from May 31st to June 15th, 2024.
Cyber Shield is an annual National Guard event that hosts National Guard and Army Reserve Soldiers, Airmen, civilian cyber professionals, and international partners worldwide.
Seven National Guard’s State Partnership Program countries joined this year’s cyber shield exercise. Poland, the Republic of Moldova, Lithuania, Romania, the Republic of Georgia, and Kosovo were in attendance with our fellow guardsmen.
“The importance is international outreach,” said North Carolina Army National Guardsman Staff Sgt. Todd Webster, a cyber security team leader. “Not only are we able to help cyber developing companies and countries, but we're also able to provide outreach across the globe.”
Here in Va. Beach, cyber forces were brought together to develop, train, and test the limits of each participant. Those involved had the opportunity to attend rigorous courses, conduct cyber exercises, and compete in this year’s NetWars competition.
Cyber Shield held a multitude of training classes tailored for various skill sets including Pen+, Security+, Linux+, and CISSP, along with several others.
“Our overall goal for Cyber Shield is to train and learn on the cyber domain,” said N.C. Army National Guardsman Lt. Col. Brian Dodd, Cyber Shield’s defensive cyber team chief. “We learn how to better respond to incidents in the cyber domain and how to better react to the problems that we see.”
This cumulative event was designed to increase an individual’s ability to infiltrate, defend, and enhance the cybersecurity network for global defense measures.
“We continue to see increased severity and increased frequency of cyber-attacks regularly,” Dodd said. “There are more threats than there have ever been in the cyber domain, so we need to come to an event like this and train together.”
Date Taken: | 06.15.2024 |
Date Posted: | 06.26.2024 22:28 |
Story ID: | 474961 |
Location: | VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA, US |
Web Views: | 163 |
Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Cyber Shield 2024, by SSG Hannah Tarkelly, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.