On September 20, 2011, Lewis Page reported for The Register on how the US military plans to "create a cyberwarfare firing range in which to test cyber weapons and train the cyber warriors of tomorrow." Called the National Cyber Range project, engineers from DARPA have created a walled-off network battleground on a similar scale to the internet. This network will be populated by "software "replicants" which play the parts of innocent human sysadmins, users etc – innocent bystanders in the devastating digital warfare taking place around them."
Source: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
The simulated warfare will be conducted by US military cyber forces armed with "technology thrusts [and] classified cyber programs." These cyber forces will be opposed by OpFor (Opposing Forces) hackers that are armed with "nation-state quality" network weaponry of their own.
The article goes on to say that there is plenty left to accomplish before the Cyber Range goes online. However, there appears to be "existing ranges" that confirm that the US military already possesses some kind of cyberwarfare test facilities already up and running.
The source article can be found here.
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