Michigan Cyber Range

The Michigan Cyber Range was a foundational piece of Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's cyber initiative,[2] which was launched in October 2011 to improve cybersecurity efforts to protect families, communities, businesses and government. Merit Network's CEO and President Don Welch who, while a professor helped create the United States Military Academy's cybersecurity program, worked with David Behen of the State and Brigadier General Mike Stone from the Michigan National Guard to create the vision for the Cyber Range and secure its start-up funding. Throughout 2012, public and private organizations pledged funds and the Michigan Cyber Range was created and staffed.

William J. "Joe" Adams joined Merit Network in June 2012 as executive director of research and the Michigan Cyber Range.[3] Adams, a career Signal Corps officer in the U.S. Army, was formerly CIO of the National Defense University. Adams has also served as a professor and research scientist at West Point and network engineer for the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Shortly after his hiring, Adams assembled a staff to create and maintain the Michigan Cyber Range's cybersecurity training environment, which is called Alphaville.[4] Alphaville is a virtual environment that simulates the computer systems of a town hall, library, small company, police station, and power company. Organizations and companies can practice the detection and mitigation of cybersecurity threats using the Alphaville environment.

On November 9, 2012, Michigan Governor Snyder participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Michigan Cyber Range.[5][6]

Michigan Cyber Range partners include Merit Network, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Energy, National Institute of Standards and Technology, DTE Energy, Consumers Energy, Plante and Moran PLLC, Juniper Networks, Eastern Michigan University, Michigan State Police, Michigan's Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and the Michigan Department of Technology, Management and Budget.

In January 2013, the Michigan Cyber Range began a collaboration arrangement with Mile2,[7] a developer and provider of vendor neutral professional certifications for the cybersecurity industry. Mile2 provides course materials, instructors and certification exams to the Michigan Cyber Range, and the Range offers a full curriculum of training courses in many cybersecurity disciplines.[8] Mile2 is recognized by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) as an Information Assurance (IA) Courseware Institution, and the company is NSA CNSS-accredited as well as NIST and NICCS-mapped.[9]

Organizations and businesses use the Michigan Cyber Range to conduct cybersecurity exercises and simulate various kinds of cyberattacks.[10] On July 24, 2013, members of the West Michigan Cyber Security Consortium (WMCSC) participated in a red team–blue team exercise, where WMCSC team members defended the IT resources of a virtual town from cyber attacks initiated by Michigan Cyber Range staff.[11] The Michigan Cyber Range, members of the West Michigan Cyber Security Consortium (WMCSC) and members of the Michigan Cyber Civilian Corps (MiC3) joined forces again for a second red vs. blue team exercise on the campus of Davenport University on July 23, 2014.[12][13]

In September 2013, Merit Network introduced a new cybersecurity service, called Merit Secure Sandbox, which uses the infrastructure of the Michigan Cyber Range. Organizations can use the service for cybersecurity exercises, educational purposes, and software testing.[14]

On March 25, 2014, the Michigan Cyber Range opened the first cybersecurity hub of its kind at a U.S. National Guard base, dedicating the facility located at the 110th Attack Wing in Battle Creek, Michigan.[15][16] Michigan Governor Rick Snyder attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony.[17] During the event, teams in Battle Creek participated in cybersecurity exercises with similar teams at the United States Military Academy at West Point and at the California National Guard.[18]

On October 15, 2014, Consumers Energy and DTE Energy conducted an incident response exercise using the Michigan Cyber Range. Representatives from the two power companies and the Michigan State Police worked closely with Cyber Range staff to create the exercise, called "Power Phoenix", which required participants to diagnose and mitigate a malware-compromised computer network and SCADA environment.[19][20]

In early 2015, Wayne County Community College District (WCCCD), in conjunction with the Michigan Cyber Range and Mile2, hosted a groundbreaking veteran's retraining program. The 13-week program prepared a group of military veterans for a career in cybersecurity. 17 students participated in the retraining program. The veterans were selected based on their experience and aptitude, in conjunction with Wayne County’s veterans affairs office.[21]

During 2016, the Michigan Cyber Range added new publicly-accessible hubs of the in Southeast Michigan. Each location provides certification courses, cybersecurity training exercises and product hardening/testing through a direct connection to the Michigan Cyber Range. Cyber Range Hubs opened inside the Velocity Center at Macomb-Oakland University[22] in Sterling Heights on March 18th and at Pinckney Community High School[23] on December 7th.

During the fall of 2016, Merit Network and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder launched the Governor's High School Cyber Challenge, a competition for high school students to test their skills in computer science, information technology and cybersecurity. The final round of the challenge happened at the North American International Cyber Summit, hosted by Governor Snyder on October 17, 2016. The three-person team from Clinton High School was crowned champions of the competition after defeating the 28 other teams in the inaugural event. The Michigan Cyber Range provided the challenges and infrastructure for the annual cyber competition.[24]

Michigan Cyber Range has twice been named the North American Authorized Training Center (ATC) of the year by Mile2.[25]

In 2017, the Michigan Cyber Range doubled the participation in the Governor’s High School Cyber Challenge from 292 high school students to 584. This included successful elicitation of participation from Native American tribal areas in Michigan. Another milestone was the addition of Cyber Range hubs in Florida and Georgia. Continuing their commitment since 2015, the Cyber Range provides exercises, support and infrastructure to the US Cyber Challenge, a national cyber competition sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security. Other milestones include the creation of virtual environments to facilitate cybersecurity involvement in kinetic training exercises, creation of an International Cyber Exercise (ICE) to promote collaboration and partnership between states’ National Guard units and the countries participating in the State Partnership Program (SPP), and the successful launch of the Regional Cybersecurity Education Collaboration in partnership with the State of Michigan and Cisco. The ICE event in 2017 was run at the NAICS – 12 states and 10 countries participated.

•  Michigan portal

•  Michigan portal

• Michigan Cyber Range
• Merit Network, Inc.