‘Shield Con’ Helps Military Cyber Defenders Learn the Latest in Cyber Security and Network With Peers

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR, UNITED STATES

06.11.2022

Story by Capt. Clarissa Estrada 

139th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

You’ve heard of Comic-Con – maybe even DEF Con, Web Con, Storm Con, ProductCon, DesignCon, Axe-con, or I.CON.
This year, Cyber Shield – the Department of Defense’s premiere unclassified cyber defense exercise – presented “Shield Con.”
“The take away for participants was to share knowledge on cyber security, community involvement, team morale, and to network within the military and share DOD knowledge,” said Aaron Rosenmund, the exercise’s director of research and development and one of the key planners of Shield Con.
The cybersecurity-specific conference on June 11 was inspired by the BSides Conference, a public sector conference to develop cyber security knowledge, build relationships, and career network.
Shield Con featured “talks” with panels covering topics such as building a National Guard cyber team, the Guard’s roles in election security, cybersecurity career planning, and others.
During the conference, participants learned how digital locks work and how to secure them against lock pickers. They learned how cyber criminals can clone items such as key fobs and participated in a round of “backdoors and breeches” - a card game that trains cyber defenders in incident response. There were booths to help participants learn about current threats to security and how these products work.
Lt. Col. Paul Neslusan from 166th Cyber Operations Squadron, Delaware Air National Guard, taught service members the importance of physical security by demonstrating how basic locking mechanisms work.
“Physical security plays a critical role in cyber security to protect information systems from unauthorized users. Understanding how a simple lock mechanism works helps to continue developing situational awareness with security defense in depth from a physical security standpoint,” Neslusan said.
Shield Con allowed participants to network, attend a career fair, and work with military members across all states and branches. This strengthened the partnerships within the cyber community.




Cyber Shield, the nation’s premiere unclassified cyber training exercise, involves more than 800 National Guard Soldiers and Airmen, civilian experts, and other military services from throughout the nation along with interagency partners from all levels of government and cyber leaders ranging from high-tech corporations to local utilities.

This year the exercise runs from June 5-17 at The Army National Guard Professional Education Center on Camp Joseph T. Robinson Maneuver Training Center, North Little Rock, Arkansas. The exercise is conducted at the unclassified level to allow greater participation. The exercise is a result of the National Guard’s commitment to defend critical infrastructure from the growing threat of cyber assaults. The mission of Cyber Shield is to develop, train and exercise cyber forces in the areas of computer network internal defensive measures and cyber incident response. These capabilities facilitate National Guard Cyber Teams’ abilities to conduct missions to coordinate, train and assist federal, state and industry network owners that are threatened by cyberattack.

Leading cyber-defense industry trainers will conduct training courses for exercise participants such as Security+, Linux+, CISSP, and more. This will be followed by the execution of a cyber-range to test the capabilities of our nation’s cyber defenders.

• Date Taken: 06.11.2022
• Date Posted: 06.12.2022 15:37
• Story ID: 422749
• Location: NORTH LITTLE ROCK, AR, US