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) (a Field Activity of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics [OUSD (AT&L)]). 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 presentation describes what a cybersecurity range is, how it might be employed, and the advantages can be gained 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. This presentation provides an overview of the operation of the NCR. This will be especially relevant to the B-Sides-Orlando participants who are learning more about government and industry actions to secure their systems and also since the prime contractor that operates the NCR, Lockheed Martin – MST is located here in Orlando.
Bio
Anne Tall is a Lead Information Systems Security Engineer at the MITRE Corporation, a Federally Funded Research and Development Corporation. Currently, her primary responsibility is as a Test Director for the National Cyber Range. Anne obtained a BSEE from University of Maryland, and MSEE from Johns Hopkins University and is currently working toward a PhD in Computer Engineering at UCF.