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The submitted photo shows West Virginia University President Gordon Gee speaking with participants during Exercise Locked Shield, the world’s largest and most complex international live-fire cyber defense exercise, held at the Morgantown campus in April.
MORGANTOWN — West Virginia University students helped strengthen homeland and global security during this year’s international Locked Shield exercise, while also learning lessons that will help them in future careers in business, cybersecurity, law, journalism and public relations.
Locked Shield is the world’s largest and most complex international live-fire cyber defence exercise, organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
In April, WVU served as the host site for more than 190 cyber experts and representatives from the Department of Defense, federal and state government agencies, academia and the private sector, led by the Joint Force Headquarters-Defense Information Network (JFHQ-DODIN).
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” “It was a great experience,” Angelina Maguire, a sophomore public relations major from central New Jersey, said near the end of the 72-hour training event in late April.
The annual event goes beyond traditional cyber exercises, inviting experts from various fields to address the multifaceted nature of cyber threats to national infrastructure. This year’s exercise attracted nearly 4,000 participants from over 40 countries.
“I feel like a completely different person after this experience, and I’ll talk about it in every interview for the rest of my life.” Maguire added.
The annual real-time network defense exercise featured red team versus blue team combatants, with the blue team assuming the role of the nation’s cyber readiness team and deployed to assist a fictional nation in dealing with a major cyber incident against the nation’s infrastructure. Led by JFHQ-DODIN, the blue team mission operation took place at the Coliseum, with university faculty and students playing key roles alongside players from the U.S. and partner nations of Montenegro and Norway.
“We met a lot of great people.” “It’s a great opportunity for me to be a part of this community,” said Gabriella Sargent, a sophomore public relations major from Martinsburg.
“It was the middle of the night so I had no idea what to expect, but the people I met and the experience were truly memorable.”
In addition to McGuire and Sargent, students who participated included:
Brandon Biggins, Management Information Systems
Kennedy Hawkins, Management Information Systems
Jared Eisenhower, Management Information Systems
Joshua Keller, Management Information Systems
Carly Lasher, Cybersecurity
Haidara Mohsin, Cybersecurity
Kerrigan Ranshaw, Cybersecurity
Faith Riggle, Cybersecurity
Isabella Lutz, Computer Science
Colin Kelly, Law
Trevor Hinkle, Law
Zebulon Meyer, Journalism “It was so fun” “It was a great opportunity to work with the West Virginia Army and the National Guard,” said Meyer, a journalism graduate student from Chesapeake, Virginia, who along with Maguire and Sargent were part of a team from the Reed College of Media that oversaw strategic and crisis communications throughout the exercise under the direction of West Virginia National Guard 1st Lt. Sami Brown and Public Affairs Officer Beau Liston.
“The first night it was strategic communications, but the second night things escalated and we were definitely doing crisis communications.” Sargent said.
Specifically, Sargent, McGuire and Meyer addressed messaging directly through mock social media platforms built to work like Facebook, X and Instagram.
They also monitored outlets designed to function like YouTube and Google News to proactively address growing concerns.
“When you’re on a social media site, it’s like an adrenaline rush.” Meyer said. “Especially in this scenario, everything is happening and it doesn’t stop. It’s constantly happening because it’s meant to test you.”
McGuire arrived at the site to accompany another student, but was quickly put to work.
“I attended a crisis communications workshop with Dr. Giulia Fraustino beforehand, but I had no prior experience with formal crisis communications, let alone government crisis communications, which is the pinnacle of what is happening in government.” She said:
“There were screens everywhere. There were people everywhere. There are so many elements to this event and it feels completely surreal to even be invited here. The lights, the atmosphere, the fact that we had to arrive at 12:30. It all felt very official and I’m so grateful that WVU gave their students this opportunity, especially since I’m an out-of-state student and I would never get an opportunity like this back home.”
Fraustino, an assistant professor of strategic communications at Reed College, recruited Sargent, McGuire and Meyer for the exercise, which took place just days before the start of final exam week.
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