Societies are becoming increasingly dependent on information and communication technologies, which are globally interconnected. However, with these growing dependencies, new threats to network and information security have emerged. Preparation is the key to mitigate the damage that cannot be prevented. CERT-MU conducts cyber security drills to improve cybersecurity readiness, protection, and incident response capabilities of organisations at regional and national level. A cybersecurity drill is a planned event during which an organization simulates cyber- attacks, information security incidents and other types of disruption.

Since 2016, CERT-MU has been organising national cybersecurity drills targeting the public and private sector organisations. These cybersecurity drills measure the ability of responding appropriately to an incident and minimising any related impact. More specifically, these simulations are delivered through different scenarios and hands-on exercises. A scenario is a self-contained piece of content, which combines a storyline, an interactive infrastructure and applications, competency objectives, user activity, tasks to perform and challenges to deal with ancillary contextual information assets, and more.

Based on the insights gained from each drill, adaptive training modules and other educational programmes targeting critical sectors such as financial, energy, telecommunication, health amongst others are developed to train and improve their cyber defenses.

In addition, CERT-MU also actively supports the delivery of regional cybersecurity drills to strengthen the cybersecurity defense of reginal partners and empower them to face the challenges of the digital age with confidence. The regional cybersecurity drills are designed with a dual purpose: as a platform for cooperation, information sharing, and discussions on current cybersecurity issues, as well as to provide hands-on exercise for incident response teams.