Military authorities and business executives visit the “Locked Shields 2026” exercise at the Joint Cyberspace Command

• Senior officers from several branches of the Armed Forces and the State Security Forces, as well as leaders from public institutions and private companies, attended the exercise in person

During the “Locked Shields” simulation exercise, the Joint Cyberspace Command hosted a visit from more than 40 distinguished members of the Armed Forces. The event highlighted the public-private partnership required to defend the country’s critical infrastructure.

These included top officials from the Department of National Security, the Guardia Civil, the National Police, the National Cryptology Center, INCIBE, the Ministry of Defense, the Cybersecurity Coordination Office, the Supreme Court, and the Bank of Spain. Together with the institutional delegation, executives from up to 20 companies collaborating with the MCCE were invited to the exercise.

Afterwards, the director of Locked Shields Spain 2026, Lieutenant Commander Vicent, explained some of the exercise’s specifics. Finally, they witnessed the exercise unfold live and observed the technological and human resources required for Spain’s participation as part of the “blue team.”

Organized by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, Locked Shields’ primary objective is to strengthen international cooperative cyber defense through an extremely realistic cyber warfare scenario.

In this edition, the strategic landscape was defined by a world divided into two operational blocs: the North Atlantic and the Pacific Region. The crisis originated following the discovery of oil and gas reserves in the south of the fictional country of Berylia. In response, Crimsonia (another fictional country) constructed artificial islands to expand its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), defying a UN ruling.

Thus, the defensive coalition—led by Berylia and supported by Netoria and Selenoa through military and intelligence cooperation agreements—faced off against the offensive axis led by Crimsonia and Nekelonia, which employed a doctrine of hybrid expansionism and mercenary proxy groups.

Locked Shields is a real-time exercise in which, in addition to cyber defense actions, teams must cooperate on technical and legal fronts, as well as carry out real-time social media crisis communication.