Four And a Half Bad Days In Cyberspace

- Defence Cyber Marvel 4 (DCM4): Inspiration & Warning

by Dr Keith Dear

Here follows a blog first published on Cassi AI by Dr Keith Dear which provides a highly informative and thought-provoking view on Defence Cyber Marvel 4. The exercise took place January – February 2025 and remains a major contributor to cyber knowledge, skills and experience in Defence. The blog is published in this edition by his kind permission.

This was the most innovative military exercise I have participated in or witnessed in 22 years of service. Defence Cyber Marvel’s fourth iteration, DCM4, took place in Seoul recently and I had the privilege to attend. If you just want to read about the exercise, skip the intro, and jump to the section headed DCM 4. But first, here’s why I think it matters…

‘The rainbow of colours in the window paints how everything went so wrong, so fast. The water in the Potomac still has that red tint from when the treatment plants upstream were hacked, their automated systems tricked into flushing out the wrong mix of chemicals.

By comparison, the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has a purple glint to it.

They’ve pumped out the floodwaters that covered Washington’s low-lying areas after the region’s reservoirs were hit in a cascade of sensor hacks. But the surge left behind an oily sludge that will linger for who knows how long. That’s what you get from deciding in the 18th century to put your capital city in low-lying swampland and then in the 21st century wiring up all its infrastructure to an insecure network.

All around the Mall you can see the black smudges of the delivery drones and air taxis that were remotely hijacked to crash into crowds of innocents like fiery meteors. And in the open spaces and parks beyond, tiny dots of bright colors smear together like some kind of tragic pointillist painting. These are the camping tents and makeshift shelters of the refugees who fled the toxic railroad accident caused by the control system failure in Baltimore.

FEMA says it’s safe to go back, now that the chemical cloud has dissipated. But with all the churn and disinfo on social media, no one knows who or what to trust. Last night, the orange of their campfires was like a vigil of the obstinate, waiting for everything to just return to the way it was. But it won’t.’

I remember reading this, August Cole & Peter Singer’s evocative “FICINT” (Fictional Intelligence) opening to the US’ Cyber Solarium report, in Downing Street in 2020. A few years before, I’d read August Cole’s brilliant short story Underbelly, that helps us explore the direct military effects of a cyberattack on the UK. It is no less alarming, resulting in a distributed HQ led by a Special Forces Colonel ‘Fessenden’, having to operate clandestinely, out of a rural pub pulling together the talents needed, with all major bases and MOD cyber networks shut down due to cyber infrastructural attacks. If you can, do read it.

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