The cyberattack simulation, called Cyber Shockwave, was created by Michael Hayden, a former CIA director general, and the National Security Preparedness Group of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which is a three-year-old nonprofit organization designed to push forward policy development with the help of the two major political parties in the US.
Scheduled to take place at a hotel in Washington, DC, the simulated game involves General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, SMobile Systems, Southern Company, Georgetown University, and PayPal. They will advise a stand-in president in a simulated White House situation room, and mount a response. The cyberattack will use tactics and scenarios that will not be revealed to the parties in advance.
"They will react to the threat in real time, as intelligence and news reports drive the simulation, shedding light on how the difficult split-second decisions must be made to respond to a non-folding and often unseen threat", the Bipartisan Policy Center said in a statement.
The US has been embarrassed by simulated war crimes in the past. In December 2008, Booz Allen Hamilton ran a cyber warfare simulation with 230 representatives from government agencies and private sector organizations. "There isn't a response or a game plan; there isn't really anybody in charge," said a Booz Allen Hamilton executive at the time.
The Bipartisan Policy Center has conducted other emergency scenario simulations in the past. It operated Oil ShockWave, a simulated oil supply crisis, in 2007.