- The FBI has built an entire city to help train its agents
- The city contains houses, businesses, and 200 hackable servers.
- The idea is to give agents hands-on experience so they are ready for the field.
In the never-ending game of cat and mouse between hackers and authorities, it helps the latter to know exactly what they’re up against. Typically, that might mean sitting in a classroom and doing some practice on a hacked server or laptop. But that’s not the case with the FBI’s Kinetic Cyber Range; no, this time the US Federal Bureau of Investigation went out and built an entire city to stay alert.
The 22,000-square-foot Kinetic Cyber Range is designed to be as realistic as possible. Visit it and you’ll find 11 different facilities, including houses, a data center, an arcade, a convenience store, a hotel, and much more. It’s designed to replicate the type of city you can find anywhere in the United States, but it’s all contained within a huge hangar at the FBI training campus in Huntsville, Alabama.
All businesses and technology in the ersatz community can be hacked, allowing students to test their skills. Aspiring cyber agents will encounter firewalls, email systems, file directories, and more, helping them prepare for future digital investigations. That being said, Kinetic Cyber Range is designed to ensure that nothing nefarious leaves its safe confines and reaches the world at large.
In addition to the FBI, the facilities may be used by NASA, the US military, and local law enforcement agencies. The idea is to bring people up to speed on the latest cyber technologies, including drone software, vehicle forensics and the Internet of Things.
Faced with emerging threats
Given how incredibly lucrative the cybercrime industry is for hackers and scammers, it makes sense for law enforcement to pursue as much real-world time as possible. Theory alone won’t provide much education, and without encountering the kinds of situations that can be found in the real world, FBI agents will be one step behind their adversaries.
Speaking on the FBI’s YouTube channel, David Beachboard, director of the Kinetic Cyber Range program, described the training site as “one of a kind” and said “there is no facility like this in the world… This is as real as it will get before people go out into the field.”
Interestingly, the center’s students will also participate in several role-playing exercises that mimic those they will encounter outside the facility, from conducting interviews with executives of companies whose facilities are being searched to dealing with medical staff concerned about patient well-being in the midst of a ransomware attack. It is these scenarios that are difficult or impossible to fully replicate within a classroom.
According to the FBI, more than 1,400 students have gone through Kinetic Cyber Range since it opened in February 2025, and training is regularly updated to cover emerging threats. As threat actors evolve, so must those trying to stop them. Beachboard and the FBI no doubt hope that Kinetic Cyber Range will play a key role in doing just that.
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