By: Sgt. 1st Class Steven Eaton
The Massachusetts National Guard and the Israeli Home Front Command conducted a joint cyber exercise July 14 through 25, 2025, in Israel. The exercise, called Cyber Front, brought together cybersecurity professionals to conduct defensive and cybersecurity incident response exercises.
Cyber Front also included a team of cyber professionals from the Kenya Defence Force, one of the Massachusetts National Guard’s State partners, broadening the knowledge and skills brought to the exercise.
“Many nations face the same threats,” said Maj. Richard O’Brien, Commander of the 146th Cyber Warfare Company. “[Sharing] know-how on analytic techniques, response procedures, and defense strategies benefit us collectively when we work together,” he added.
The exercise included a weeklong training and technical challenge, followed by a realistic cyber response engagement focusing on detecting and eradicating a threat. Using real-world threat actor tactics, organizers aimed to make the training as realistic as possible.
“The goal of the exercise was to challenge cybersecurity professionals in analyzing and detecting indicators of compromise following a cybersecurity breach,” said O’Brien. “Participants needed to map the attacker’s actions and build a timeline of events to understand what weaknesses led to the compromise and perform corrective actions to stop the attacker and return the system to normal,” he added.
Cyber Front was the first cyber exercise between the Mass. Guard and the HFC, hosted and executed in Israel; however, it was the result of more than eight years of bilateral cooperation between the National Guard Bureau, the Massachusetts National Guard, and the Israeli Home Front Command.
The five members of the Kenya Defence Force brought additional experience and insights to the exercise.
“It was incredible to see how quickly a joint team of US, Israeli, and Kenyan Forces, who have never worked together before, were able to quickly establish effective work roles and responsibilities to cover the myriad of requirements during the investigation and the response,” said O’Brien. “In just three days’ time, they were a highly effective team who discovered the threat actor, reversed the exploits, and restored the system to normal,” he added.
Building partnerships across borders helps cyber professionals tackle these complex security incidents.
“There is a particular value in working across international lines with our partners since the cyber landscape of threats and defenses are unrestricted by map or international boundary,” said O’Brien.
