The Luxembourg Army confirmed that Luxembourg took part in the largest and most complex international live-fire cyber defence exercise from 20 to 21 April 2022.
"Locked Shields" is the largest cyber defense exercise in the world, both in terms of the complexity of the problems to be solved and the number of participants. It allows the various nations and their armed forces to train both the national chain of command and the computer experts in the defense of cyberspace.
This annual exercise, organised since 2010 by the "NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCDCOE)" located in Tallinn, Estonia, allows cybersecurity experts to improve their skills in defending national computer systems and critical infrastructures against real-time attacks. The focus is on realistic scenarios, state-of-the-art technologies and the simulation of all the complexity of a large-scale cyber incident, including political decision-making, legal aspects and communication. As a result, this exercise is the ideal way to train national cyber defense capabilities, both at the technical level and at the procedural, legal and political levels, according to a “whole-of-government” approach.
“Locked Shields” is a “Red Team vs. Blue Team” excercise. While the Red Team consists of "attackers" from various nations and cyber organisations, the Blue Teams are in principle national teams which constitute, within the framework of the exercise, rapid reaction teams to assist a fictitious country to manage a large-scale cyber incident.
Similar to 2021, the Luxembourg army initiated Luxembourg's participation in partnership with Belgium and the Netherlands, to form a "Benelux" team. The Benelux “Blue Team” is made up of more than 70 participants, including 24 Luxembourg participants from various administrations and organisations, including SecurityMadeIn.LU, the Restena foundation, National Education, the High Commission for National Protection, the Grand Ducal police, the Directorate of Defense and the Army.
The Benelux team ranked fourteenth (out of 24 teams).
The organisation of this exercise at Benelux level offers an opportunity for the army to demonstrate Luxembourg's desire to be part of the leading pack of digital nations and to perfect the know-how of Luxembourg cyber specialists.
