Locked Shields is a real-time network defence exercise which in 2014 involved close to 300 participants from 17 nations. Running over two days the 12 defending teams from all over Europe were put against one attacking team for a unique training and cooperation opportunity.
This year’s scenario placed the teams in a fictional country of Berylia which industry fell under increasing cyber attacks. Day 1 started with low level hacktivist campaigns and led to espionage and sabotage attacks against the defenders’ networks by the end of day 2. In addition to technical defence the event includes a number of additional tasks such as legal assignments and forensics challenge which aim to make the exercise as lifelike as possible. The exercise is built up as a competitive game in which the defending teams are scored based on their performance. Although the defending teams are competing with each other, the exercise is set up in a way that it encourages the teams to share information and cooperate as much as possible.
The 12 defending teams were Estonia, Finland, NATO CIRC, Italy, Spain, Germany & the Netherlands, Turkey, Latvia& Czech Republic, Hungary, France, Poland, Austria & Lithuania. Poland was crowned the overall winner. The teams were participating from their home countries; exercise control was located in Tallinn, Estonia. The exercise was organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence together with Estonian Information System’s Authority, Estonian Defence League’s Cyber Defence Unit, Estonian Defence Forces, Finnish Defence Forces and many others.