More than 3000 participants, including cyber defense experts, government officials, and personnel from international tech industries taking part in the annual cyber defense exercise Locked Shields 2023 in Tallinn, Estonia.
The world’s largest cyber defense exercise was hosted by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE) with participants from 38 countries, including NATO Allies and partners.
The exercises began on April 18, 2023, and involved protecting computer systems from real-time attacks and simulating tactical and strategic decisions in critical situations. The cyber defense experts defended critical systems and practiced in various tasks including, reporting incidents, executing strategic decisions, and solving forensic, legal, and media challenges.
The Locked Shields 2023 continued for four days, and the participants were divided into two groups, the Read Teams (attacking team) and the Blue Teams (defending team).
Estonia’s Minister of Defence Hanno Pevkur said, “This past year has shown us how important strength in cyber defense is. Cyber warfare may not be as visible as kinetic warfare, but it is integrated into wartime activities. Ukraine has strong digital competencies, and that has meant that their state can keep delivering essential digital services even in wartime. Cyber competence grows through investments, but not only monetary ones – exercises like these, where allies with shared values also exchange know-how and train together, are key to continued resilience.”
The Locked Shields exercise underscored the importance of not just technical expertise, but also strategy and cooperation. The exercise has been organized in Tallinn by the NATO CCDCOE since 2010.
According to the Director of NATO CCDCOE, Mart Noorma, “Cyber crises require a coordinated effort among decision-makers and experts from diverse government bodies and professions. Locked Shields thus focuses not only on cyber defense, but also on strategy games, legal issues, and crisis communication. In the event of a major cyberattack, swift cooperation is crucial to prevent the escalation of a security crisis.”
Noorma further emphasized that exercises like Locked Shields help ensure that we are better prepared to handle such scenarios.
The CCDCOE statement highlighted that “The 24 participating Blue Teams represent national cyber Rapid Reaction Teams, deployed to assist a fictional country under large-scale cyberattacks. Their task is to protect the mock state’s information systems and critical infrastructure, like banking system and power plant, from thousands of attacks, make management decisions in a crisis situation, and ensure that decisions are well considered.”
The statement further highlighted that the “Locked Shields is made possible in partnership with TalTech, Clarified Security, Arctic Security, Bittium, CR14, SpaceIT, Atech, cybensis GmbH, Microsoft, SUTD iTrust Singapore, Fortinet, National Cybersecurity R&D Laboratory, Financial Services Information Sharing and Analsyis Center (FS-ISAC), HAVELSAN , Deepensive, Estonian Defence Forces, NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, Forestall, Rocket.Chat, Telia and VTT.”
