Virginia National Guard, Partners Test State’s Cyber Resilience Plan During Two-Week Exercise

The Virginia National Guard hosted the Cyber Fortress 2.0 exercise, which tested how the state’s cyber response plan would work in the real world.

During the event, state and federal organizations and representatives from the Finnish Defence Forces participated in a tabletop exercise to test how the cyber response plan would work in defending an attack against a private critical infrastructure partner. Cyber professionals from VNG and the civilian private sector also engaged in a force-on-force cyber exercise using the Army Cyber’s Persistent Cyber Training Environment.

The exercise took place from July 10 to 21, the U.S. Army said.

The event happened 10 months after the first Cyber Fortress exercise, where VNG soldiers and airmen worked with private- and public-sector partners to test cyber resilience capabilities. The first exercise allowed officials to test and identify lapses in the state’s cybersecurity plan and study how to best deploy state resources to respond to threats.

Cybersecurity plan testing in Virginia started taking place amid cyberattacks that have grown in frequency and sophistication.