National Cyber Range Overview

Abstract

The National Cyber Range (NCR) is an innovative Department of Defense (DoD) resource originally established by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and now under the purview of the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC). It provides a unique environment for cybersecurity testing throughout the program development life cycle using unique methods to assess resiliency to advanced cyberspace security threats. This paper describes what a cybersecurity range is, how it might be employed, and the advantages a program manager (PM) can gain in applying the results of range events. Creating realism in a test environment isolated from the operational environment is a special challenge in cyberspace. Representing the scale and diversity of the complex DoD communications networks at a fidelity detailed enough to realistically portray current and anticipated attack strategies (e.g., malware, distributed denial of service attacks, cross-site scripting) is complex. The NCR addresses this challenge by representing an Internet-like environment by employing a multitude of virtual machines and physical hardware augmented with traffic emulation, port/protocol/service vulnerability scanning, and data capture tools. Coupled with a structured test methodology, the PM can efficiently and effectively engage with the Range to gain cyberspace resiliency insights. The NCR capability, when applied, allows the DoD to incorporate cybersecurity early to avoid highcost integration at the end of the development life cycle. This paper provides an overview of the resources of the NCR which may be especially helpful for DoD PMs to find the best approach for testing the cyberspace resiliency of their systems under development.

A Cyber Range for Armed Forces Education

“…2 National Cyber Range (NCR) is a military facility to emulate military and adversary networks for the purposes of realistic cyber vulnerability testing, supporting training and mission rehearsal exercises. 3 The U.S. Department of Defense has been funded the development since 2009 and the target personnel are governmental organizations. 3 Michigan Cyber Range (MCR) is an unclassified private cloud.…”

“…3 The U.S. Department of Defense has been funded the development since 2009 and the target personnel are governmental organizations. 3 Michigan Cyber Range (MCR) is an unclassified private cloud. MCR is controlled by a non-profit organization.…”

Lessons learned from complex hands-on defence exercises in a cyber range

“…One very popular cyber range is DETER/DeterLab [20], [21], which is based on Emulab and was started with the goal of advancing cyber security research and education in 2004. Nowadays, there exist many other cyber ranges, e. g., National Cyber Range (NCR) [22], Michigan Cyber Range (MCR) [23], SimSpace Cyber Range [24], EDURange [25], or KYPO Cyber Range [26].…”

KYPO Cyber Range: Design and Use Cases

“…National Cyber Range (NCR) (NCR, 2017) -the NCR is a military facility to emulate military and adversary networks for the purposes of realistic cyberspace security testing, supporting training and mission rehearsal exercises (Ferguson et al, 2014). Its development and operation have been funded by the U.S. Department of Defense since 2009 and the target user group are U.S. governmental organizations.…”