US military cyber experts have been putting their skills to the test defending Estonia’s critical infrastructure as part of an exercise in Tallinn.
The exercise prepares NATO forces for real-world threats, pushing cyber units through live-system hunting and detection operations, while strengthening coordination between Allied military and civilian infrastructure operators.
Set in a secure, highly realistic training environment, the exercise replicated complex infrastructure networks, allowing US and other Allied operators to conduct force-on-force defensive training against advanced systems, without risking real-world threats.
Exercise Immediate Response is part of Sword 26, a series of US-led multinational exercises focusing on coordinated military operations in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe.
Footage includes shots of US soldiers on computers and soundbites from Major Brandon Krantz, Maryland Air National Guard, and Major Marissa Robbins, Maryland Army National Guard.
---SHOTLIST—
(00:00) VARIOUS SHOTS – SOLDIERS FROM THE US ARMY MULTI-DOMAIN COMMAND EUROPE SAT IN ROOM, USING COMPUTERS
(00:41) VARIOUS SHOTS – SOLDIERS FROM US MARYLAND NATIONAL GUARD SAT IN ROOM, USING COMPUTERS
(02:56) CLOSE SHOT – ARM PATCH OF THE 169TH CYBER PROTECTION TEAM, MARYLAND NATIONAL GUARD
(03:03) VARIOUS SHOTS – SOLDIER GIVING DIRECTION TO A COLLEAGUE ON A COMPUTER
(03:36) SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – MAJOR BRANDON KRANTZ, MARYLAND AIR NATIONAL GUARD, US AIR FORCE
“So the big exercise is called Sword 26. A subset of that is what's happening here in Estonia, it's called Immediate Response. And with regard to that, we're specifically working as the Cyber Coalition forces supporting Estonia, so NATO forces in the area were called out in response to threats to networks, to the networks in Estonia, specifically the critical infrastructure piece, including the railways, which deploy forces into the region, and the power grid.”
(04:18) SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – MAJOR BRANDON KRANTZ, MARYLAND AIR NATIONAL GUARD, US AIR FORCE
“So the overall objective is for us to be stronger as an alliance, as a coalition that we, that we can learn from one another and we can share best practices so that, you know, and we get exposure to different systems, the latest and greatest techniques in warfare and then in cyber specifically and learn from that so that we're stronger as a coalition. We've worked and we're very good at interoperability between one another. So that we can face the future threats.”
(05:02) SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – MAJOR MARISSA ROBBINS, MARYLAND ARMY NATIONAL GUARD, US ARMY
“So this exercise is really important to us because it allows us to interact with a system owner that is non-military, who is tied specifically to critical infrastructure. And one of our main focuses at home in Maryland, within the Maryland National Guard, is shifting to critical infrastructure. So having a practice interaction and mission partner that is say like a utility or in some way tied to critical infrastructure is valuable experience to us as we explore that at home as well.”
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