VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Maryland Air National Guard Airmen participated in Cyber Fortress 3.0, a training exercise that tested the local, state and federal response to potential cyberattacks against critical infrastructure.
The exercise, hosted by the Virginia National Guard July 7-20 in collaboration with other agencies, simulated a cyberattack on water utility companies in Virginia operated on a virtual network.
“If you can shut down the water, then you essentially stop U.S. forces from being able to deploy and project power overseas,” said Virginia Army National Guard Maj. Andres Slonopas, operations director of the Information Operations Support Center and lead planner for the exercise.
Cybersecurity exercises related to critical infrastructure are vital to bolstering U.S. defense on an extreme scale, said Slonopas.
“We’re seeing that we’re so interconnected in this world; it truly is a worldwide web,” said Slonopas. “We can’t wait for an incident to take place and then react to it; we have to be proactive.”