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Czech team ranked second in LOCKED SHIELDS 2019


The Czech team ranked second in the world's largest and most comprehensive cyber security exercise, Locked Shields 2019, organized by NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence in Tallinn, Estonia. A team from France ranked 1st in the exercise. Over 1,000 specialists were involved in the exercise and 23 teams in total from all over the world competed. Experts in the Czech team excelled once again and confirmed their long-term outstanding performance in the biggest Alliance cyber exercise.

As in previous years, the exercise simulated real cyber-attacks. The participants had to defend for example a power plant or a water purifier against cyber-attacks aimed to shut down these facilities. The exercise infrastructure included real-world types of devices and systems.

In addition to the technical part, the exercise focused on non-technical aspects of the attacks. The teams had to deal with the media and public attention, and to communicate actively in order to avoid the panic that such attacks could cause. Legal experts in the teams were responsible for ensuring that all interventions were in accordance with international law.

As in previous years, the Czech team was composed of representatives of the National Cyber ​​and Information Security Office (NÚKIB) and other people from the public, private and academic community working in the field of cyber security. This year, the team included experts from NÚKIB and representatives of Avast, Masaryk University, Czech Armed Forces, Red Hat, Axians, NetSuite, Accenture, CZ.NIC, CESNET, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The French team won the exercise and the Swedish team ranked third. The Czech team participated in the exercise for the fifth time, ranking third in the last year, and first in 2017.

More than 1,000 professionals were involved in Locked Shields 2019 and 23 teams in total from around the world competed. This year's exercise included about 4,000 virtualized systems and more than 2,500 attacks. Each team was tasked with maintaining more than 150 complex IT systems. "We are trying to diversify the technical game with strategic interventions and legal inquiries, for example, how would you deal with a drone crash, what your government would deal with it, and many other questions," said Tomáš Minárik, a long-time NÚKIB representative in the NATO's Cyber Defense Center.

The exercise has been organized since 2010 by the NATO Cooperative Cyber ​​Defense Center of Excellence, an accredited NATO research and training facility that provides educational services, consultations, experience, and conducts cyber security research and development. Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States are currently members of the CCDCOE. Non-NATO countries include Finland and Austria while Sweden is currently seeking a partnership. This year's edition was organized in cooperation with the defense forces of Estonia and Finland, the Swedish Defense University, the British Army, the United States European Command (USEUCOM), the Analysis and Simulation Center for Air Operations (CASPOA), the Center of Excellence and Tallinn University of Technology.