Crossed Swords: A Cyber Red Team Oriented Technical Exercise

This paper describes the use-case of international technical cyber exercise "Crossed Swords" aimed at training the NATO nation cyber red teams within a responsive cyber defence scenario. This exercise plays a full-spectrum cyber operation, incorporates novel red teaming techniques, tools, tactics and procedures (TTTPs), assesses team design and management, trains the skills for target information system covert infiltration, precision take-down, cyberattack attribution, and considers legal implications. Exercise developers and participants have confirmed the learning benefits, significant improvements in understanding the employed TTTPs, cyber-kinetic interaction, stealthy computer network infiltration and full-spectrum cyber operation execution.