Cyber Attacks to Mission Facilities and Infrastructure Simulations
Simulation Scenarios will run continuously during Exhibit Hall hours in the Innovation Pavilion (Booth 602). Scheduled simulations will occur as follows:
Tuesday, 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
Thursday, 9:00 a.m.
While recent cyber incidents to data and software disrupted the lives of Americans, national headlines over the last year have also carried stark warnings about foreign hackers positioning cyber “bombs” in American infrastructure to wreak havoc on our economy and cause harm to citizens and communities – a real threat to our physical safety. Cyber attackers are now working to sabotage the smart technologies in essential services including power, water, communications, trade, and transportation systems in defense facilities and supporting infrastructure in the Homeland in order to delay or deny the deployment and operation of military forces. According to the outgoing FBI director Christopher Wray, on Jan 13, 2025, China’s cyber program poses “the greatest-long-term threat” and the “defining threat of our generation,” having already pre-positioned malware to “lie in wait on those networks,” where it can “inflict real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing,”. On Feb 14, 2025, Microsoft released a report about a Russian hacking group, Seashell Blizzard, targeting energy, oil and gas, telecommunications, shipping, arms manufacturing, and other critical infrastructure in the US, the UK, and Canada. More recent threat intelligence has confirmed that adversaries are directly targeting critical defense assets and supporting infrastructure on military installations for cyber-attacks to deny or destroy the asset.
Both the private sector owners of these systems and military engineers may not have the threat awareness, expertise, or resources to identify, respond and recover from sophisticated attacks. Military engineers, public works officials, and the supporting A/E/C industry must be aware of the tactics, techniques, and procedures to mitigate this quickly expanding risk and to recover critical mission operations.
The Cyber Warfighter Scenario training will be conducted on the JETC 2025 main exhibit floor Learning Lab as a series of actual demonstrations by session leaders and scheduled micro-session discussions with subject matter experts to train facility engineers and managers on a full range of cyber risk vectors to defense assets, from utility and water systems to critical building controls and automation components. The training is intended for both military and civilian engineers at every echelon of Command responsible for the sustainment and operation of critical defense assets and installations.
Partnering with vendors, non-profits, and academic institutions, models of infrastructure systems and virtual (digital) twins will be set up to present demonstrations of cyber-attacks and effects. The training session will be augmented by cyber technology vendors to present their solutions to mitigate cyber risks in facilities and infrastructure.
Participants will need to attend a minimum number of attack demonstrations and 30 minutes presentations by cyber security experts within a predetermined schedule over the course of the entire two days. We will outbrief the results of our demonstrations and attendees to Service engineer Chiefs at the SAME Executive Advisory Group meeting.
Tabletop Demonstration Learning Objectives
- Review processes to identify critical system and cyber vulnerabilities within the DOD operational assets.
- Instruct on the sequence of events and lessons learned from an actual cyber-attack to an HVAC system.
- Identify proactive measures to protect critical systems and mitigate risk of a cyber-physical attack.
- Assess options, probabilities, and timing for the recovery of mission essential systems.
- Identify programs to share information within the national security command structure on the incident.
