Cyber Defense Exercices Locked Shields & Cyber Exercises in the Financial Sector

The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) in Tallinn, Estonia is organizing the largest and the most advanced live-fire cyber defence exercise in the world on a yearly basis since 2010. The Locked Shields exercise grows each year and in 2018 it was the largest one conducted so far with about 1000 participants and 30 different nations, involving 22 defending blue teams and an attacking red team with about 70 members. First, I will begin with a short introduction and history of the CCDCOE, its mission and activities. Next, I will continue with an overview of the exercise from a participant’s perspective, its training goals, the most interesting aspects, different teams and their roles. Then, I will continue with intelligence-led red team testing conducted within the financial sector and the different accompanying frameworks. And finally, I will conclude with a discussion about the value of such exercises when compared to traditional methods of security assessments and testing. The talk will be rather non-technical, aimed at security practitioners as well as decision makers, and based on publicly-available information.