NOVI – The Michigan Cyber Range has created a SCADA training component for its Alphaville cybersecurity environment that will be unveiled Oct. 25 at the Michigan Cyber Summit 2013 at the Suburban Collection Showcase.
Staff from the Michigan Cyber Range will host a booth at the event, where they will demonstrate Alphaville and engage in capture the flag exercises within the virtual environment. The new SCADA module, which is called Alphaville Power & Electric, took approximately two and a half months to complete. The component reflects the computer infrastructure that is typically found in a power plant, what many security experts believe will become the target of hackers, either criminal or state sponsored.
“It will let people train on cybersecurity issues related to control systems, preparing them for real-life scenarios in a secure, virtual environment,” said said Joe Adams, vice president of research and cyber security at Merit Network.
Since its launch in May 2013, the Alphaville environment has been used for several training events and workshops, with the largest event being a high school workshop that was done in conjunction with Eastern Michigan University. Alphaville is a virtual town that features computer systems for a library, police station, city hall, and power plant. Students and professionals are able to practice the detection and mitigation of cybersecurity threats, as well as participate in red team-blue team exercises using the secure virtual environment. The Michigan Cyber Range’s development team will next work on an incident response and recovery component for Alphaville, which will enable students and others to practice and learn business continuity and disaster recovery techniques.
In the next few months, the Michigan Cyber Range will be offering several cybersecurity certification courses online and in Ann Arbor, covering disaster recovery, penetration testing, and other topics. The range offers certifications for 14 cybersecurity disciplines in partnership with Mile2, a nationally respected training provider.
