Dark Guest - Training Games for Cyber Warfare (1st Edition)

Dark Guest contains four separate games for use in cyber education. They range from a detailed card based game about techniques used in hactivism to a command post style exercise for senior leaders.

The purpose of these game is to educate players in a number of different aspects of hacking, hacktivism and cyber warfare and to provide a light hearted break from Power Point lectures on the subject.

The authors have many years' experience in information management, cyber warfare and game design. John Curry is an academic and editor of the History of Wargaming Project. Tim Price MBE is an army officer with over 25 years' experience in simulation and gaming.

Together they bring their experience together to create a valuable resource for education and training.
This publication offers four tried and tested examples from the plethora of potential game systems that we have used and they have been play tested at a number of establishments.

The first game, Hack This! , is about the rise of hacktivism and attempts to assist the players in understanding this emerging area of cyber operations; in a simple way, the game explores group motivations and operating strategy. It also helps players learning about different hosts, vectors, attacks, botnets and factors that have previously influenced the cyber operations of hacktavists. The game, however, requires some preparation in terms of printing and preparing the cards for use in the game.

The second game, Enterprise Defender , models network defense against a determined target attack by teams of hackers seeking to compromise that single company. The game system is open ended and can be played at whatever level of detail as suits the target audience.

The third game, All Your Secrets Are Belong to Us , explores the controversial area of international cybercrime with players representing various international factions. The game is used to develop understanding of the type of complex inter-relationships of the cybercrime world. Although the example is hypothetical, the likely actions of the players will normally be illustrative of the day to day life in the hacking world at an international level.

The fourth and final game, Exercise Tallinn Soldier , is included for completeness. It is an example of the 'traditional' cyber wargame; based on the military command post exercise. The game is an exercise in command and control decision making, typical for a government facing sustained cyber-attack. Based on the Estonia crisis of 2007, the unwritten question underlying the game is, should Estonia stay within international law while under attack.

The games are not intended as commercial products, refined and highly polished with perfect balance of play and fair for all players – the real cyber world isn’t like that and in any case moves too fast. They are intended as a vehicle for education and understanding – and the glee on the faces of players who decide that they want to hack into their favorite celebrity hate figure’s personal emails, followed by the subsequent realization as to what is some of the motivation behind real world hackers, is really what it is all about.