JUNE 17, 2025 – Nearly a thousand participants including international partners, civilians and joint military forces converged for the longest-running and largest Department of Defense cyber defense exercise at the Virginia National Guard State Military Reservation in Virginia Beach, Virginia, May 30 to June 13, 2025.
The participants gather annually for training and assessment in cybersecurity skills. This year’s training included CompTIA training and certifications like CySA+, PenTest+, CASP+ and more. Some of the training teaches cyber defense and offense, while some teaches strategy and management.
The first week, participants took training for certifications and tested skills in competitions like Capture the Flag, a type of cybersecurity competition where participants engage in various challenges to find hidden text strings, known as “flags,” within vulnerable programs or websites. In the second week, red teams created offensive attacks that mimic real-world scenarios endangering municipalities and public services, while the blue team defended.
“It’s about moving from talking about possibilities in theory, to putting the concepts into action with practical application,” said Staff Sgt. Shawn Buck, noncommissioned officer in charge of the signal section (S6), 248th Aviation Support Battalion, Iowa Army National Guard. “We are looking at why and how [the enemy] works from two steps back and two steps ahead, and then using the information to plan a defense.”
Protecting critical infrastructure—like water and electricity—from cyberattacks is a national priority. With advances in technology and the modernization of systems, cybersecurity is increasingly at the forefront of defense.
“We are here to exercise our capabilities as a team to find out how we’re operating in an incident response,” said Maj. Jeremy Wright, team lead for the Defensive Cyber Operations Element, Joint Force Headquarters, Iowa National Guard. “We [came here to] get training in the first week and then see how good we are in the second week.”
During both the training and the exercise, the participants appeared intensely focused and engaged.
“My favorite aspect of this is seeing my team take the things that they’ve learned in the first week and put that into practice in the second week,” said Wright. “It’s like instant growth. You see these guys learning [something] one day and then the next day they’re using that.”
Cyber Shield also offers a rare opportunity for multiple states’ National Guard units, global State Partners and other branches to work together and learn from each other. It’s a chance to share perspectives and skills at a level that can only happen at an event of this scale, said Wright.
“Our team has been lucky to receive a lot of training even before coming to Cyber Shield,” said Maj. Genti Koqinaj, commander with the Communications and Information Systems Company, Kosovo Security Force. “But this exercise has helped us to validate and test the teams’ abilities to do cyber defense, threat hunting, host analysis and many other tasks as part of cyber defense.”
Koqinaj says he is also grateful for the State Partnership program with the Iowa National Guard for helping the KSF grow in cyber capabilities, putting them in a much better posture for cyber defense. This year, they were able to train on setting up ranges and training environments and will now be able to conduct similar operations in Kosovo.
“I really love the people,” said Capt. Rhea Goulet, action officer for Cyber Shield, 3662nd Support Maintenance Company, North Dakota Army National Guard. “The opportunity to visit with individuals from not only across the United States but from other countries, as well as working with other states to facilitate the coordination and logistics of Cyber Shield.”
Goulet has been the full-time action officer for Cyber Shield since 2021 and said she has seen the value of the partnerships first-hand, including those with vendors and course trainers that she works with in order to support the certifications element of Cyber Shield.
“Cyber Shield is so important because cyber is the next big thing,” said Goulet. “A lot of warfare doesn’t just take place outside the keyboard; it takes place on the keyboard.”
By Staff Sgt. Samantha Hircock