Chironex
DEAS Cyber+ is a partner of the Navy in the cyber training Chironex, part of the larger drill “Mare Aperto”. The goal is to make the Armed Force cyber resilient by design and strengthen the capabilities to counter cyber attacks. The name of this training activity, in fact, comes from the Australian jellyfish Chironex fleckeri (known as the sea wasp or box jellyfish), attractive and insidious like cyber threats.
2024
The Adversary Emulation activities aimed to verify the potential capacity of sabotage and/or alteration of a ship's control systems, such as the rudder, the diesel engine and workstations dedicated to on-board personnel. Highly specialized staff from DEAS Cyber+ conducted simulation activities of an advanced hostile actor (APT) in order to identify potential vulnerabilities and criticalities, then implement remediation actions to significantly increase the cyber resilience of the Italian Navy.
The cyber training allowed the Armed Force crews to evaluate how defenses can be penetrated and what the best response strategies are in an integrated and multi-domain conflict context.
2023
The DEAS Cyber+ Adversary Emulation specialists simulated a cyber attack, activated by the kinetic component, on Italian Navy strategic assets. The objective was to test the resilience and response of the Armed Force. The COMSUBIN Tier 1 Special Forces, latest-generation naval units, a SOC and the Carabinieri also participated in the activities.
The exercise was divided into four phases of increasing difficulty: two distinct massive phishing campaigns, i.e. the use of a fake email that redirects to a malicious site through a further link; two specific spear phishing activities (on a more limited number of targets) divided into two sub-phases: an attack for the inoculation of a Malware (created ad hoc, dormant and activated on command); finally, a management of the IT incident, to which a subsequent kinetic action by the Special Forces is linked on a presumed platform identified as the origin of the threat.