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More than 50 Illinois National Guard Soldiers and Airmen along with civilians from the Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology and the Illinois State Board of Elections returned recently from a major cyber training exercise sponsored by the National Guard Bureau.
Close to 1,000 military and civilian local, state, and federal cyber experts from across 41 states and territories as well as 13 international partners participated in Cyber Shield 2024 held May 31 to June 15 at the Virginia National Guard State Military Reservation in Virginia Beach, Va. The Illinois National Guard has shared a State Partnership Program with the Polish military since 1993. The Polish participated in Cyber Shield again this year along with cyber experts from Ireland, who have forged ties with the Illinois National Guard cyber community in the last couple years.
The National Guard-sponsored exercise is the longest-running and largest Department of Defense cyber defense exercise. Because it is unclassified, it allows service members from the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard to train with experts from the private and government sectors as well as some U.S. allies. Eleven other U.S. allies participated in the exercise along with Poland and Ireland.
“We have a great group of cyber experts in the Illinois National Guard, but we need more,” said Maj. Gen. Rodney Boyd, The Adjutant General of the Illinois National Guard. “These are skills and training opportunities that are very marketable outside the military. The National Guard will pay you, train you, and you can put those skills to use in a high-paying civilian job.”
"This exercise underscores the importance of collaboration between military and civilian cyber experts,” said Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology Secretary and State CIO Sanjay Gupta. “The skills and knowledge gained here are invaluable as we work together to protect our state’s information.”
The Illinois Army National Guard’s Bloomington-based 176th Cyber Protection Team re-certified during Cyber Shield 2024. The Illinois National Guard also has cyber positions in units across the state including multiple Army units and all three Illinois Air National Guard wings in Peoria, Springfield, and Scott Air Force Base.
“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 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.”
Cyber Shield started with “training week” where cyber warriors have the opportunity to learn new skills such as Pen+, Security+, Linux+, and CISSP, along with several others. Training week concluded with the NetWars competition. Think of NetWars as a giant video game where teams of Cyber experts are pitted against each other in a test of hacker knowledge and skills.
The cyber experts then put their new skills to the test on the cyber range in week two when they were tasked with protecting networks against a nefarious group of experienced hackers called the “Red Team.” Nearly 30 “Blue Teams” (the good guys) saved “Mud Dog Water Corporation” from both nation-state and cyber criminals intent on disrupting critical infrastructure through cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, and general bad behavior. Each threat needed to be identified, assessed, and mitigated through a coordinated response.
“This year blue teams defended Mud Dog Water Corporation against low skilled access brokers up through advanced persistent threats (APTs) and had to navigate social media disinformation campaigns and deepfakes," said Illinois Army National Guard Col. Jeff Fleming, the officer-in-charge of the exercise for the last two years.
Fleming, the Illinois Army National Guard’s Director of Information Management (G6) and has been actively involved in the exercise for about a decade. “It is exercises like this that are critical to continuing to strengthen the whole of government response with our partners and allies, to defend against and respond to cyber incidents, regardless of what critical infrastructure is targeted. The folks that participate in Cyber Shield leave better trained and more prepared to respond to their state’s or nation’s call."
At the conclusion of Cyber Shield 2024, Brig. Gen. Teri Williams, the Vice Director of Operations (CYBER) for National Guard Bureau presented Fleming with the Military Cyber Professional’s gold Order of Thor.
The Order of Thor is presented to The Order of Thor recognizes “excellence in and special contributions to the American military cyber community. These recipients demonstrate duty, loyalty, and excellence.” Recipients must be members of the association and have made special contributions to the military cyber profession and/or the MCPA.
| Date Taken: | 07.25.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2024 11:49 |
| Story ID: | 477006 |
| Location: | SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, US |
| Web Views: | 51 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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