CYBERVAN™
Flexible, high-fidelity cyber range enables cyber testing and evaluation, cyber training, digital twins, dataset generation and experimentation environments
Peraton Labs’ CyberVAN is a mature, high-fidelity cyber range, currently used to support cybersecurity activities for a wide variety of government customers, academia, and industry partners.
The key differentiator of CyberVAN is that it represents the underlying network in a discrete event network simulator and represents hosts using virtual machines (VMs) that communicate over this simulated network. CyberVAN enables very realistic modeling of heterogeneous networks, including enterprise, military, and utility networks, as well as the Internet. The high fidelity modeling provided by CyberVAN is impossible within most existing cyber ranges. The discrete event simulator can model:
CyberVAN’s fundamental innovation is its transparent forwarding capability, which enables the seamless forwarding of traffic originating on VMs through the simulated network to the destination VMs. The simulated network makes use of the ns-3 open-source network simulator and supports EMANE (Extendable Mobile Ad-hoc Network Emulator) models. This provides out-of-the-box support for military and commercial waveforms, which are typically implemented in EMANE and ns-3.
Over the past decade, CyberVAN’s continuous enhancements included a rich library of tools and capabilities to support a wide range of use cases. Configurable synthetic users provide realistic traffic generation by driving applications using the keyboard and mouse to emulate specific cyber persona. These synthetic users interact with each other within a synthetic Internet that simulates the presence and availability of a large number of Internet-type and enterprise network services and web content.
To support the automated generation of cyber scenarios for training events and testing and evaluation (T&E) of cyber defensive tools, Peraton Labs’ VulnerVAN tool was developed. VulnerVAN enables users to generate CyberVAN scenarios within a specified set of vulnerabilities based on the MITRE ATT&CK® TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures).
With hundreds of active users across government, academia, and industry, CyberVAN is being applied to diverse use cases, including:
In summary, CyberVAN is:
For more information on CyberVAN, see CyberVAN or contact Peraton Labs at cybervan@peratonlabs.com.
The key differentiator of CyberVAN is that it represents the underlying network in a discrete event network simulator and represents hosts using virtual machines (VMs) that communicate over this simulated network. CyberVAN enables very realistic modeling of heterogeneous networks, including enterprise, military, and utility networks, as well as the Internet. The high fidelity modeling provided by CyberVAN is impossible within most existing cyber ranges. The discrete event simulator can model:
- Network effects like propagation, interference, and loss
- Mobility of nodes in wireless networks
- Jamming effects at the physical layer
- Medium access control (MAC) layer and network layer protocol
CyberVAN’s fundamental innovation is its transparent forwarding capability, which enables the seamless forwarding of traffic originating on VMs through the simulated network to the destination VMs. The simulated network makes use of the ns-3 open-source network simulator and supports EMANE (Extendable Mobile Ad-hoc Network Emulator) models. This provides out-of-the-box support for military and commercial waveforms, which are typically implemented in EMANE and ns-3.
Over the past decade, CyberVAN’s continuous enhancements included a rich library of tools and capabilities to support a wide range of use cases. Configurable synthetic users provide realistic traffic generation by driving applications using the keyboard and mouse to emulate specific cyber persona. These synthetic users interact with each other within a synthetic Internet that simulates the presence and availability of a large number of Internet-type and enterprise network services and web content.
To support the automated generation of cyber scenarios for training events and testing and evaluation (T&E) of cyber defensive tools, Peraton Labs’ VulnerVAN tool was developed. VulnerVAN enables users to generate CyberVAN scenarios within a specified set of vulnerabilities based on the MITRE ATT&CK® TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures).
With hundreds of active users across government, academia, and industry, CyberVAN is being applied to diverse use cases, including:
- Cyber T&E – used for T&E of a wide range of military applications and cyber defensive/offensive tools
- Cyber Training – provides a suite of tools that facilitate cyber events aimed at achieving specific training objectives
- Digital Twins – supports automated generation of CyberVAN scenarios that replicate a specific network to enable experimentation and analysis
- Dataset Generation – enables generation, collection, and automated labeling of large and varied datasets for training machine learning models and forensic analysis
- Cyber electro-magnetic activity (CEMA) modeling and simulation (M&S) for live, virtual, constructive and gaming (LVC&G) environments – interfacing CyberVAN with modeling and simulation systems for these environments enables high-fidelity CEMA effects, improves the accuracy of modeled battlespaces, and supports multi-domain operations training and large cyber exercises
In summary, CyberVAN is:
- Proven: Currently deployed at half a dozen DoD laboratories
- Scalable and cost-effective: Deployments leverage COTS equipment and can be scaled up or down depending on customer usage requirements
- Flexible: Can be used in a stand-alone lab or field environment, or accessed remotely via a web portal by geographically dispersed users
For more information on CyberVAN, see CyberVAN or contact Peraton Labs at cybervan@peratonlabs.com.