Joint Mission Environment Test Capability National Cyber Range (NCR) Sustainment

Abstract

In FY 2013, responsibility for the National Cyber Range (NCR) was given to the Test Resource Management Center (TRMC) and subsequently put under the Joint Mission Environment Test Capability (JMETC) management team. The NCR was funded in FY 2013 through funds provided by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E), Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research & Engineering)(ASD(R&E)) reprogramming, and the TRMC investment programs. In FY 2014, the NCR was funded from the JMETC Program Element. The NCR provides secure facilities, technology, processes, and workforce to rapidly create hi-fidelity, mission representative cyberspace environments and facilitate integration/federation of cyberspace test and evaluation (T&E) infrastructure in support of the TRMC Mission. It supports a diverse user base and accommodates a wide variety of event types (R&D, Developmental Test & Evaluation (DT&E), Operational Test & Evaluation (OT&E), Security Control Assessor (SCA) Compliance, Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO), Offensive Cyber Operations (OCO), Tactics, Techniques Procedures (TTP) Development, Forensics/Malware Analysis) and communities (research, systems engineering, testing, operations, training, etc.). The NCR has the capability to support up to 4 concurrent events at different classification levels using Multiple Independent Levels of Security (MILS) architecture. It is accredited to operate at TS//SI-G/TK/HCS-P//SAR. In support of a variety of customers, the NCR has emulated complex (Red/Blue/Gray) operationally representative network environments at a scale up to ~50K high-fidelity virtual nodes. The NCR can operate in conjunction with other ranges through remote connectivity via JMETC connectivity infrastructure. The NCR’s Test Automation Tools minimize human error, enable verification of test environment, ensure repeatable results and can reduce event timelines from weeks/months to hours/days. Range assets can be sanitized after exposure to malicious attacks/malware to restore exposed systems to a known, clean state. The JMETC-funded National Cyber Range allows acquisition programs and operational forces to efficiently evaluate their cyber warfighting capability in a realistic joint mission environment. This enables a customer-defined joint mission test environment for systems engineering and testing, extensible to training and experimentation, in a timely and cost effective manner.

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Document Details

Document Type
Project
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2016
Source ID
200_0605100D8Z_6_0400_PB_2016

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Computer science
  • Engineering

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Enterprise Information Systems Architecture and Joint Command Capability Interoperability Support.
  • Marine Propulsion Engineering and Naval Architecture

Technology Areas

  • Cyber

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