Photo By Joseph Siemandel | Sgt. 1st Class Lance Shimamoto, a cyber-professional with 156th Information Operations...... read more read more
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In a matter of minutes, cyber criminals strike an electrical grid just outside of Bangkok while at the same time attack critical infrastructure in Japan and Korea. It’s a likely scenario that is being tested and trained for during this year’s cyber security exercise at Cobra Gold 2021.
“For the exercise we are trying to test other countries and their blue teams on how they respond to the exploits or enemy attacks and share that information between coalition partners,” said Sgt. 1st Class Lance Shimamoto, a cyber-professional with 156th Information Operations Battalion, Washington Army National Guard. “With seven countries participating in the exercise, some things that work in one country may not for another so there is a lot of sharing of information.”
Washington National Guard cyber experts join others from across the Department of Defense to provide exercise oversight as well as an opposing force “Red Team” cell for the cyber professionals from the partner countries participating.
“For me I had never been on a Red Team or opposing force, so I am learning a lot about how the attackers may get into a system. It’s allowing us to even look at our vulnerabilities and harden them,” said Shimamoto.
Held annually in the Kingdom of Thailand, Cobra Gold is a multi-national Indo-Pacific military exercise that is aimed to enhance the capabilities of participating nations to plan and conduct combined and joint operations, build relationships among participating nations across the region, and improve interoperability over a range of activities, including homeland assistance disaster relief. Due to travel restrictions because of COVID-19, less participants traveled to the Kingdom of Thailand. That shifted parts of the exercise to a virtual environment.
“This year’s exercise is being held in four different countries, spread across four different time zones, but has truly been a learning experience as we look forward to the Cobra Gold Cyber Exercise in 2022,” said Lt. Col. Jason Silves, 194th Wing, Washington Air National Guard. “Working with soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines in a joint environment, spread across the globe shows what we can accomplish through cyber space.”
With teams in several different time zones, keeping up with the exercise has meant the team at Camp Murray began its day at 6 pm and are often finishing up around 4 am the next morning.
“Because of this schedule we have been able to build relationships within our own joint team,” said Silves. “By sharing the love and bringing in soldiers, airmen, marines and sailors we are able to learn from one another.”
Following this year’s exercise, Silves will travel to Hawaii to start the process to plan for next year’s exercise.
“I end this exercise and already start planning for the 2022 exercise,” said Silves. “We continue to build off each year’s exercise and make this product better each time.”
| Date Taken: | 08.11.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 08.24.2021 17:39 |
| Story ID: | 403835 |
| Location: | CAMP MURRAY, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 361 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Washington Guardsmen team with partner countries during Cobra Gold Cyber Exercise, by Joseph Siemandel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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