Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Cyber Range for Teaching Cyber-Warfare in Canberra

Greetings from the CSIRO Discovery Centre in Canberra, where Rich Richmond from Northrop Grumman is speaking on "USA view on Cloud computing technologies - A Private Cloud for Environment Testing" to Australian Computer Society members. Rich has been building a specialized cloud service for UNSW Canberra. He described the use of a "Cyber Range" which is a network test environment for cyber security (the virtual equivalent of a weapons test range). There is already a "Michigan Cyber Range" for teaching cyber security in the USA and DARPA had a "National Cyber Range Project" to build a simulation of the Internet for cyber war games. The DoD Cyber Range was reported open in mid 2012, as part of the US DoD Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace (2011):
The development of the National Cyber Range will enable the success of these and other efforts, allowing DoD, other U.S. government entities, and potentially non-U.S. government partners to test and evaluate new cyberspace concepts, policies, and technologies. Although the U.S. military routinely exercises units on target ranges and in a variety of simulations, DoD has had limited capability to simulate cyberspace operations. The National Cyber Range, which allows the rapid creation of numerous models of networks, is intended to enable the military and others to address this need by simulating and testing new technologies and capabilities. ...

While not explicitly stated, it would appear the Canberra Cyber Range will be used for teaching cyber-warfare to military personnel at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), which is the military partner of UNSW Canberra. This is hinted at in the media release from Northrop Grumman (2012): ".... build a cyber test range for the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra campus at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) ... training and educating the future leaders of the Royal Australian Navy, Army and Air Force... including the burgeoning area of cyber research."

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