Today, 26 March, marked the conclusion of Locked Shields Partners’ Run 2026, organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). The exercise served as the main rehearsal for Locked Shields – the world’s largest live-fire cyber defence exercise – and brought together experts from academia, industry, and defence institutions to train and test their cyber defence capabilities.
“Locked Shields is the most complex and demanding cyber defence exercise in the world, designed for national teams. The Partners’ Run also offers companies, universities, and defence organisations an opportunity to collaborate and train their specialists in the same demanding environment across technical, legal, strategic decision-making, and strategic communications tracks. Success in the Partners’ Run requires strong performance across all these domains,” said Dan Ungureanu, Locked Shields 2026 Exercise Director.
This year’s Partners’ Run was the largest to date, with 16 Blue Teams putting their skills to the test, including Adelaide University, Arvato Systems, Bitdefender, Ericsson, Estonian Defence League & University of Tartu, Kapsi Internet-users Association, joint team of Hungarian Universities (BME, ELTE, NKE, ÓE, PTE, SZIE), Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA), Polish Naval Academy, Siemens, St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, TalTech, TechnoLogica, Telia Estonia, University of Valladolid & University of Zaragoza, and Joint AI Research Team (armasuisse, CCDCOE, NLDA).
During the exercise, the teams had to defend a simulated national infrastructure against around 6,000 cyberattacks. This year’s edition introduced several new elements, including expanded cloud segment and a dedicated elections system.
In addition to strengthening their own capabilities, participants contributed directly to shaping the upcoming main execution of the exercise. “Locked Shields is a very technically advanced exercise in which we have built critical infrastructure systems that our modern societies rely on to operate. This complex environment requires thorough testing. We are very grateful to all our partners, as the insights gained here directly translate into an improved exercise environment for national teams during the main execution,” Ungureanu added.
Locked Shields 2026 will take place in April and will bring together more than 4000 cyber experts from more than 40 nations to practice protecting critical infrastructure and military systems from cyberattacks.
Locked Shields Media Day takes place on 21 April in Tallinn. For accreditation, please contact: [email protected].