The NCCC initiated the launch of the first national cyber range Cyber Range UA

On 23 August 2024, the National Aviation University hosted the official presentation of the first national cyber range Cyber Range UA. This is a modern platform that provides Ukrainian cyber specialists from government agencies, critical infrastructure enterprises, the private sector and the academic community with the opportunity to receive training and practice skills to actively counter cyber threats.

The event was attended by Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine Serhii Demediuk, Deputy Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Oleksandr Borniakov, Deputy Minister for Strategic Industries Hanna Hvozdar, Acting Rector of the National Academy of Sciences Kseniia Semenova, Head of the Information Security and Cybersecurity Service of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Secretary of the NCCC Nataliia Tkachuk, representatives of the main cybersecurity entities and private companies. The national cyber range was presented by Yehor Aushev, CEO of Cyber Unit Technologies, PhD in Physics and Mathematics, Associate Professor of the Department of Cyber Security at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.

Cyber Range UA is a virtual environment for emulating infrastructures and cyber attacks available to all cyber specialists in the country. Several dozen specialists can train simultaneously at the cyber range, working in teams to learn how to respond to incidents in conditions as close to real as possible.

Currently, the cyber training ground has 15 scenarios and their number will be constantly increasing. Each scenario is a virtual simulation of real cyber attacks that Ukraine has faced in recent years, including sophisticated ART attacks by russian hacker groups that attack our country on a daily basis.

"The cyber training ground was created at the initiative of the NCCC as an important component of the implementation of the Cybersecurity Strategy of Ukraine. For the NCCC, as the national coordinator, the priority is to strengthen the capabilities of the national cybersecurity system and ensure effective interaction between different sectors and actors.

That is why Cyber Range UA will function as an open platform, and we invite representatives of the academic community, the private sector and government agencies to join the creation of high-quality and accessible cybersecurity training programmes. This will enable future cyber specialists to improve their skills, contributing to the emergence of new innovative products and projects in this area in Ukraine", - said Serhii Demediuk, Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine.

Cyber Range UA will be primarily used by representatives of government agencies, critical infrastructure enterprises and students of the National Aviation University. At the same time, the platform will also be available to private companies and other educational institutions, which will ensure the exchange of experience and interaction between different sectors and cybersecurity actors to improve the national cybersecurity system.

Nataliia Tkachuk, Head of the Information Security and Cybersecurity Service of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, Secretary of the NCCC, stressed that in leading cybersecurity countries such as the United States and Israel, almost every IT university has its own cyber training grounds. "For Ukraine, this is a very important first step in this direction, which will help train the best specialists and turn Ukraine into a leader in cybersecurity."

The first tests of the cyber training ground were held during the two-day cyber competition INCIDENT RESPONSE DAYS 3.0, which took place on 22-23 August 2024. They were attended by specialised public sector professionals and university students.

The main goal of the event is to improve the qualifications and practical skills of cybersecurity specialists by performing tasks as close as possible to real incidents.

The winners of INCIDENT RESPONSE DAYS 3.0 are as follows:

22 August: first place - Dcua team and second place - Persistent Peacock from the National Technical University of Ukraine ‘Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute’, third place - Mav3rik team of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

23 August: first place - ByteMe team of the Oil and Gas Security Service. Second place - dotXYZ team of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS), third place - SDCM team of the Security Service of Ukraine.

Cyber Range UA is a joint project of the National Coordination Centre for Cybersecurity at the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine, the National Aviation University, and Cyber Unit Technologies. The creation of the cyber range and the Incident Response Days were supported by CRDF Global in Ukraine and the US Department of State. Representatives of the NCCC, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Bank of Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, NPC Ukrenergo, as well as IBM specialists, which has extensive experience in building cyber ranges for public and private customers around the world, participated in the development of the architecture and concept of the cyber range.