NOVOLUKOML, 1 June (BelTA) – The second stage of the CIS counterterrorism exercise Cyber Antiterror 2016 began in the Belarusian city of Novolukoml on 1 June, BelTA has learned.
According to the concept of the exercise, an extremist website has published an appeal of international terrorists to launch a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against critical infrastructure servers in Belarus. The attackers are supposed to use a malware program published by the same website.
The appeal of the terrorists is backed up by their supporters from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. They download the malware and are supposed to use it at a specific time.
Meanwhile, the extremists recruit personnel of the Lukoml state district power plant to release a virus into the power plant's local area network (LAN). At the same time the lawbreakers intend to stage a large-scale terrorist attack in real life in case the DDoS attack fails.
The first stage of the counterterrorism exercise took place in Belarus, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Russia on 23-25 May. Security agencies and special services of the CIS member states carried out a number of search and respond actions coordinated by the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center to detect and suppress acts of cyberterrorism.
In particular, experts from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia accomplished several training tasks, prevented a DDoS attack and an attempt to disrupt control of the Lukoml state district power plant.
During the second stage of the exercise special operations units of the State Security Committee, the Interior Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the State Border Committee of Belarus will carry out an operation to free hostages and neutralize a terrorist group at the Lukoml state district power plant. In turn, units of the Emergencies Ministry will take care of minimizing its consequences.
KGB Chairman Valery Vakulchik noted that during the exercise they intend to test all the components and levels of the system created in Belarus to respond to acts of terrorism, including the system's possible interaction with similar systems in other CIS member states.
