Army Wargames Russian Electronic Warfare & Cyber Attacks

Kris Osborn

In a Cyber Quest exercise aimed at preparing the service for fast-evolving current and future cyber threats.

The month-long Army event included as many as 27 vendors and more than 300 participants gathered to assess the ability of soldiers to detect anomalies and explore networks for evidence of a cyberattack; the scenarios included simulated attacks and various kinds of automated actions to replicate anticipated threats, intrusions and malicious actors.

“We were looking to find operational gaps and pass those along to industry by putting capability into the hands of soldiers to help inform our doctrine and operational concepts,” said Maj. Gen. John Morrison, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence, Fort Gordon.

While many specifics of future high-tech attacks are not expected to be known currently, the emphasis of the training was to prepare for the fast pace of technological change and be ready for adaptations to be made by potential adversaries, such as Russia or China.

Participants in the exercise experimented with more than 40 capabilities geared toward responding to attacks from near-peer adversaries, Morrison said.

“We want to defend networks and provide the operational edge with an ability to detect new attacks and remediate those attacks in a rapid fashion. Today, it may take hours. We are trying to get that down into the realm of minutes,” Lt. Col. Stephen Roberts, Cyber Quest 2017 officer in charge.

For the first time for the Army, the training included a specified synthesis between cyber and electronic warfare attacks, as the two are often intertwined, Morrison explained.
The current EW and cyber attack environment was a specific focus of the exercise, but the possibility of Russian hacking is very much on the radar. Russian electronic warfare tactics used during the invasion of Ukraine were, without question, noticed around the world.
These attacks demonstrated an improved ability for EW technologies to locate and jam enemy radio signals with greater effect and at longer distances.