There is a need to accurately model the effects of cyber weapons for analysis, system testing and hardening, and training. Current simulations of the Net-Centric Battlespace do not adequately recreate the impact of cyber warfare due to a lack of realistic cyber threat and defense representations.

Hardware-based cyber ranges are limited in scale, costly, and time-consuming to configure. Moreover, they have no capability to simulate the inherent vulnerabilities endemic to wireless tactical networks. They also do not effectively model the overall effect of a cyber attack on a mission and are therefore unsuitable for mission analysis or training.

In this paper, we present a new approach, the Virtual Cyber Range, a portable modeling and simulation framework that provides a real-time, hardware-in-the-loop capability for simulation of cyber threats to the entire net-centric infrastructure. It also provides the ability to evaluate the effectiveness of the threats in disrupting communications via key performance indicators. The range provides models for accurate cyber threat simulation at all layers of the networking stack to include passive, active, coordinated and adaptive attacks on networks with hundreds to thousands of wired and wireless components. The range enables interoperability with Live-Virtual- Constructive (LVC) simulations providing assessment of human-in-the-loop performance, and can stimulate physical networked systems with simulated cyber threats for real-time testing.

Utilizing this framework, the authors present findings for a targeting mission regarding the adequacy of defenses against cyber attacks that attempt data exfiltration and disruption of situational awareness.

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Maneesh Varshney