On October 20-22 authorities and companies of private and public sectors are training at national level cyber defence exercise Cyber Shield 2020 co-organised by the National Cyber Security Centre under the Ministry of National Defence and Kaunas University of Technology.
The exercise is held to enhance hands-on cybersecurity skills: test and train the ability to complete actions laid out in the National Cyber-incident Management Plan, test-run internal cyber-incident response procedures of the training organisations, give an opportunity for maintenance personnel to practise to detect and analyse cyber-incidents and share date related to such incidents.
“Exercise Cyber Shield 2020 simulates cyber-attacks and incidents that the National Cyber Security Centre deals with on a daily basis. We have created conditions for participants to try out their incident management procedure and to assess their readiness to manage an incident and its effects successfully. We tried to offer relevant and up to date scenarios and technologically advanced cyber-incidents that would challenge employees of the participating organisations in a safe environment,” Exercise Director, head of the Cyber Defence Department of the National Cyber Security Centre Deividas Stumbras says.
“Aside from its direct goal, the exercise is also a kind of a platform that brings together cyber security experts and facilitates sharing of insight and experience. Participants have to engage with each other directly during preparations and later during the exercise: the contacts they establish are critical for their daily work. And even more so – in case of a cyber-incident when all of it can help manage it in a speedier, more efficient manner,” Director of the National Cyber Security Centre Dr. Rytis Rainys says.
Exercise organisers offer as realistic training scenarios as possible – one of the most common kind of incident National Cyber Security Centre is asked to help with daily is hacking a website with unupdated operating systems or weal administrator passwords. This year the training audience also has an opportunity to train a remote access cyber-incident scenario.
Cyber-incident management rarely manages with cybersecurity and IT specialist help only, therefore a more diverse group of participants from organisations’ staff, such as legal, communications experts, executives, are invited to join the cybersecurity exercise.
The exercise is based on “train as you fight” concept: participants come with the capabilities, personnel and procedures they actually have and use. That allows participating organisations to get a realistic view of the level of their cybersecurity.
Photos: Cyber Shield 2020 (credits: Sgt Spc 1st Class Lukas Kalvaitis)
