A team from the Royal Canadian Navy has won the Defense Department’s annual Cyber Flag 21-2 training exercise, besting 430 cyber professionals from across the US military’s joint services.
Army Gen. Paul M. Nakasone announced that Team 15 from the Royal Canadian Navy won this year’s cyber defense-focused Cyber Flag 21-2 exercise, or ‘Big Flag,’ during the event’s virtual closing ceremony.
Royal Canadian Navy Commodore Matthew Bowen, Vice J5 Multinational Partnerships and Integration at Cybercom, accepted the award on behalf of the Canada-based team.
“Cyber Flag 21-2 tested the best and brightest cyber protection teams. This exercise assessed their tactical cyber skills while collectively improving our cyber resiliency. I’d also like to congratulate the Royal Canadian Navy’s Cyber Protection Team, the winner of this year’s event,” Nakasone said.
The 17 cyber protection teams included international participants from Canada and the United Kingdom. The US teams came from the US House of Representatives, the US Postal Service, the US Coast Guard, the National Guard and service cyber component commands.
Cyber Flag 21-2 was executed using the Persistent Cyber Training Environment. This years’ virtual training ranges were five times larger than previous exercises. Operating remotely across eight time zones and three countries, the PCTE enabled Canada, the UK and the US with the flexibility to synchronise the virtual competition.
For the first time, the exercise not only trained cyber operators in a tough competitive environment, but also identified characteristics of successful cyber protection teams. During the exercise, the teams performed their defensive tasks of countering the actions and injections within the scenario.
Each team was assessed on its specific cyber defensive actions by Cybercom assessors, who recorded best practices and tactics, techniques, and procedures. Those insights were shared with all participants for use in future training and defensive cybersecurity actions.
