Cyber Range

Last Updated: June 6, 2012

Definition - What does Cyber Range mean?

A cyber range is a virtual environment that is used for cyberwarfare training and cybertechnology development. It provides tools that help strengthen the stability, security and performance of cyberinfrastructures and IT systems used by government and military agencies.

Cyber ranges function like shooting or kinetic ranges, facilitating training in weapons, operations or tactics. Thus, cyberwarriors and IT professionals employed by various agencies train, develop and test cyber range technologies to ensure consistent operations and readiness for real world deployment.

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Techopedia explains Cyber Range

Because cyber ranges are controlled virtual environments, operational conditions and weapon/defense performance results may be replicated to reduce failures and errors.

Cyber ranges exist in military and government agencies, industries and private installations. Currently, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing the National Cyber Range (NCR).

Goals of DARPA’s NCR include:

Replicate large scale, complex and diverse networks and users for future and current Department of Defense (DoD) weapon systems and operations
Enable a realistic testing facility for Internet and Global Information Grid (GIG) research
Enable the development and deployment of state-of-the-art cybertesting capabilities
Facilitate the scientific use of cybertesting methods
Provide a virtual environment for the quantitative, qualitative and realistic assessment of potentially ground-breaking cybertechnologies for research and development