- The FBI built a 22,000-square-foot replica town in Huntsville, Alabama, called the Kinetic Cyber Range to train law enforcement in simulating and investigating cyberattacks.
- The training facility, opened in February 2025, mimics a real U.S. community with houses, a hotel, a gas station, a courthouse, a hospital, and a power company, all wired with functional devices and systems.
- It includes a data center with over 200 physical servers running Windows and Linux to replicate corporate environments for hands-on breach response and search warrant execution training.
- The facility has trained more than 1,400 students, including FBI personnel and partners from federal and local agencies, in a secure environment to prevent simulated attacks from escaping.
- Training focuses on ransomware attacks, real-world consequences, and high-pressure decision-making, such as responding to incidents that could harm people, like hospital systems failing.
- It also covers digital forensics, using controversial tools that exploit undisclosed vulnerabilities in encrypted devices from companies like Apple or Google to extract data for criminal investigations.
- This initiative addresses rising cybercrime, with the FBI's 2025 report noting a record $20.9 billion in U.S. losses, a 26% increase, and ransomware as the top threat to critical infrastructure.