Cyber Storm II Highlights Need for Better Training

In an exercise dubbed Cyber Storm II, the Department of Homeland Security spent last week simulating a large-scale, coordinated attack on the nation’s critical infrastructure networks. But was the exercise a success?

In an article on the Government Executive website, Jill R. Aitoro says the exercise demonstrated that workers who operate the networks need better training on how to manage backup systems in case cyberattacks take down main systems.

Aitoro says Cyber Storm II was designed to build on the lessons learned in the first Cyber Storm in February 2006. It started last Monday with five countries, 18 federal agencies, nine states and more than 40 private-sector companies participating.

“This is not scripted,” Greg Garcia, assistant secretary for cybersecurity, said during a press briefing. “Players are not aware of what’s coming at them next... The volume and sophistication of attacks has strained some of the best and brightest, which is just what this exercise is meant to do.”

Aitoro says DHS officials declined to comment on the specifics of the results. They did, however, say that the kinds of scenarios participants faced included damaged phone lines, Internet failures, which tested the backup capabilities that enabled continued communication and access to critical information during a crisis.

“We’ve learned some lessons,” Robert Jamison, undersecretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate at DHS, told Aitoro. “We spend a lot of time working on redundancy capabilities” that help eliminate single points of system failure. “While it all worked, there continues to be a need to train people in those capabilities,” he added.

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