FBI builds ‘fake town’ to help deal with cyber attacks

While Hollywood has fake cities for filming, the FBI also builds fake towns for training. This agency recently shared on YouTube some images of Kinetic Cyber ​​Range – a simulated town hidden inside a campus in Huntsville, Alabama.

Theo Digital Trendsinstead of training personnel to deal with gunfights or rescue hostages, the facility is designed to recreate real-life cyberattacks on homes, businesses, and critical infrastructure. The goal is to train employees in a safe environment outside of the classroom, giving them hands-on practice with some of the latest consumer and enterprise technologies that are frequently targeted by hackers.

Theo Tech CrunchKinetic Cyber ​​Range has actually been operating since February 2025, designed as a real American community with fully furnished houses, hotels, gas stations, supermarkets, courts, hospitals, electric companies, even streets and traffic lights. Since opening, the facility has trained more than 1,400 students, including FBI agents as well as partners from other federal and local agencies.

Kinetic Cyber ​​Range has a data center containing more than 200 physical servers – some running Windows, some running Linux – reflecting the corporate environment students might encounter when responding to a cybersecurity incident or serving a search warrant. Every area in town has real-life equipment and systems installed. The facility is also designed to ensure the simulated attack does not spread.

Kinetic Cyber ​​Range allows the FBI to reconstruct ransomware attacks and real-life consequences, including decisions made under high pressure when handling incidents that could endanger people, such as a hospital system being crippled.

“This is almost the most realistic environment before people step into the scene. We try to build as realistic a situation as possible. Everything is based on incidents that have happened,” said Dave Beachboard, manager of Kinetic Cyber ​​Range.

The simulated town also helps train students in digital forensics, a method used by police to bypass cybersecurity protection on devices to extract data for investigations. Tools used for this purpose are controversial because they exploit vulnerabilities that have never been disclosed to device manufacturers, such as Apple or Google, thereby negating the protections they have built for users.

The FBI’s 2025 Internet Crime Report, based on more than one million complaints, recorded cybercrime losses in the US reaching a record $20.9 billion, up 26% over the previous year, with ransomware ranked as the top threat to critical infrastructure