AhnLab Participates in NATO-led International Cyber Defense Exercise "Locked Shields 2025"

- AhnLab's threat response and analysis experts participated as part of the Blue Team (defense team) under the joint national team of South Korea and Canada, carrying out tasks in the "technical exercise" category, such as blocking malware spread, analyzing the source of attacks, identifying causes of breaches, and securing evidence

- Contributed to building a robust defense system and creating a realistic defense environment by providing endpoint solutions such as "AhnLab EDR", "AhnLab V3", and "AhnLab EPP" for malware detection and endpoint threat response

May 12, 2025 – AhnLab, a leading cybersecurity company in Korea, participated in the international cyber defense exercise "Locked Shields 2025" (hereinafter referred to as "Locked Shields"), which was held over five days from May 5 to 9.

 

"Locked Shields" is the world's largest cyber defense exercise, organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). It has been held annually since 2010 with the aim of strengthening cyber crisis response capabilities among NATO member countries (see Reference).

 

AhnLab's threat response and analysis experts joined the Blue Team (defense team) of the Korea-Canada joint national team in "Locked Shields," where they performed real-time threat detection and response in the "technical exercise" category. AhnLab's personnel leveraged their 30 years of accumulated expertise in threat analysis and response to contribute meaningfully to the training—particularly in blocking the spread of malware, analyzing the source of attacks, identifying the causes of breaches, and securing evidence.

 

The AhnLab team also provided their own endpoint solutions to the Korea-Canada joint national team, including the next-generation endpoint threat detection and response solution "AhnLab EDR," the anti-malware solution "AhnLab V3," and the endpoint protection platform "AhnLab EPP." These solutions played a key role in establishing a robust defense system, from detecting malware to responding to endpoint threats, and in creating a defense environment that closely simulates real-world conditions.

 

AhnLab CEO Suk-Kyoon Kang said, "In this exercise, AhnLab demonstrated its 30 years of globally recognized analysis and response capabilities, made possible by our employees' expertise in analysis and response as well as the performance of our endpoint security solution," and added, "We will continue to strive to strengthen international cyber defense capabilities while responding to the evolving global cyber threats."

 

[Reference] Locked Shields

First held in 2010, Locked Shields is the world's largest international cyber defense exercise, organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). The exercise is composed of a technically focused "technical exercise" and a "strategic exercise" that evaluates legal and policy-level responses. It simulates a scenario in which a fictional NATO member state is subjected to a large-scale cyberattack, comprehensively testing real-time defense and crisis response capabilities. Teams are divided by role into △White Team (exercise control), △Green Team (infrastructure operations), △Yellow Team (situational awareness), △Blue Team (defense), and △Red Team (attack), each carrying out specific missions. This year's exercise included approximately 4,000 cyber experts from 39 countries, including around 170 specialists from 47 organizations across South Korea's public, private, and military sectors.