FBI Creates Mock Small Town to Test Real-World Cyberattack Scenarios

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has revealed details of a 22,000-square-foot replica town located on its Huntsville, Alabama, campus, designed to help law enforcement agencies train for and investigate cyberattacks in realistic environments.

The facility was created to provide investigators with hands-on experience beyond traditional classroom instruction. It allows trainees to interact with modern consumer and enterprise technologies that are frequently targeted by cybercriminals. The initiative comes as cybercrime continues to grow rapidly. According to the FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, which analysed more than one million complaints, cybercrime losses in the United States reached a record $20.9 billion, up 26% from the previous year. Ransomware remained the most significant threat to critical infrastructure.

Known as the Kinetic Cyber Range, the purpose-built town opened in February 2025 and includes fully furnished homes, a hotel, a gas station, a grocery store, a courthouse, a hospital, and a power company. The site also features roads, traffic signals, and other infrastructure intended to replicate a real American community. Since opening, the facility has trained more than 1,400 students, including FBI personnel and law enforcement partners from federal, state, and local agencies.

Every building is equipped with operational devices, networks, and systems that function as they would in real-world environments, ensuring that simulated cyberattacks remain fully contained within the facility.

The range also houses a dedicated data centre with more than 200 physical servers running both Windows and Linux, mirroring the environments investigators commonly encounter during cybercrime investigations and search warrant operations.

“They’re cold, they’re cramped, they’re noisy, they’re dark, they’re miserable,” said Dave Beachboard, the program manager responsible for the cyber range, describing the realistic server-room conditions.

The facility enables investigators to simulate ransomware attacks and study their real-world consequences, including scenarios in which critical services, such as hospital systems, are disrupted and rapid-response decisions are required.

In addition, the Kinetic Cyber Range serves as a training ground for digital forensics techniques used by law enforcement. These methods are often employed to access encrypted devices and recover evidence for criminal investigations. The tools used for such purposes remain controversial because they often exploit undisclosed software vulnerabilities that can bypass security protections built into devices by companies such as Apple and Google.