SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - More than 50 Illinois National Guard Soldiers and Airmen, along with civilians from the Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology and the Illinois State Board of Elections, returned recently from a major cyber training exercise sponsored by the National Guard Bureau.

Close to 1,000 military and civilian local, state and federal cyber experts from across 41 states and territories and 13 international partners participated in Cyber Shield 2024 May 31 to June 15 at the Virginia National Guard State Military Reservation in Virginia Beach.

The Illinois National Guard has shared a State Partnership Program with the Polish military since 1993. The Polish participated in Cyber Shield again this year along with cyber experts from Ireland, who have forged ties with the Illinois National Guard cyber community in the last couple of years.

The exercise is the longest-running and largest Department of Defense cyber defense exercise. Because it is unclassified, it allows service members from the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard to train with experts from the private and government sectors as well as some U.S. allies.

"We have a great group of cyber experts in the Illinois National Guard, but we need more," said Maj. Gen. Rodney Boyd, adjutant general of the Illinois National Guard. "These are skills and training opportunities that are very marketable outside the military. The National Guard will pay you, train you, and you can put those skills to use in a high-paying civilian job."

"This exercise underscores the importance of collaboration between military and civilian cyber experts," said Illinois Department of Innovation & Technology Secretary and State CIO Sanjay Gupta. "The skills and knowledge gained here are invaluable as we work together to protect our state's information."

The Illinois Army National Guard's Bloomington-based 176th Cyber Protection Team recertified during Cyber Shield 2024. The Illinois National Guard also has cyber positions in units across the state including multiple Army units and all three Illinois Air National Guard wings in Peoria, Springfield and Scott Air Force Base.

"Our overall goal for Cyber Shield is to train and learn on the cyber domain," said North Carolina Army National Guard Lt. Col. Brian Dodd, Cyber Shield's defensive cyber team chief. "We learn how to better respond to incidents in the cyber domain and how to better react to the problems that we see."

The event was designed to increase an individual's ability to defend and enhance the cybersecurity network for global defense measures.

"We continue to see increased severity and increased frequency of cyber-attacks regularly," Dodd said. "There are more threats than there have ever been in the cyber domain, so we need to come to an event like this and train together."

Cyber Shield started with "training week," during which cyber warriors learned new skills, including Pen+, Security+, Linux+ and CISSP. The week concluded with the NetWars competition, pitting cyber experts against each other in a test of hacker knowledge and skills.

Participants protected networks from experienced "Red Team" hackers in the second week.

Nearly 30 "Blue Teams" (the good guys) saved "Mud Dog Water Corporation" from nation-state and cyber criminals intent on disrupting critical infrastructure through cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns and general bad behavior. Each simulated threat needed to be identified, assessed, and mitigated through a coordinated response.

"This year blue teams defended Mud Dog Water Corporation against low-skilled access brokers up through advanced persistent threats (APTs) and had to navigate social media disinformation campaigns and deepfakes," said Illinois Army National Guard Col. Jeff Fleming, the officer in charge of the exercise.

"It is exercises like this that are critical to continuing to strengthen the whole of government response with our partners and allies, to defend against and respond to cyber incidents, regardless of what critical infrastructure is targeted," Fleming said. "The folks that participate in Cyber Shield leave better trained and more prepared to respond to their state's or nation's call."

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