AWS Bolsters Allied Cyber Defense at NATO's Locked Shields 2026 Exercise

For the third consecutive year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) served as a foundational technology provider for NATO's Locked Shields 2026, the globe's most extensive live-fire cyber defense exercise. This annual event is critical for strengthening the cyber resilience of allied nations against sophisticated digital threats. AWS's contribution was pivotal, offering the scalable and secure cloud infrastructure necessary to host a complex training environment. The exercise brought together over 4,000 cyber defenders representing more than 40 countries, all tasked with defending against an unprecedented volume of cyberattacks—exceeding 8,000 real-time simulated assaults. AWS's cloud platform facilitated more than half of the virtual machines deployed within the exercise environment, providing a stable and high-performance foundation for the blue teams to operate. Throughout the two-day duration of Locked Shields 2026, the AWS infrastructure maintained a flawless record, reporting zero downtime and zero incidents. This reliability is a testament to the inherent resilience and operational excellence of the AWS cloud. Participating blue teams leveraged a suite of AWS-native security tools, including Amazon Inspector, Amazon GuardDuty, and AWS Security Hub CSPM, to identify and mitigate threats effectively. Interestingly, the red team, responsible for launching the simulated attacks, creatively utilized over 100 AWS CloudFront deployments for their Command and Control (C2) infrastructure, showcasing the versatility of AWS services even in offensive scenarios. AWS's extensive adherence to 143 security standards and compliance certifications globally further solidifies its standing as a secure platform for sensitive national security operations. This ongoing partnership with NATO through Locked Shields highlights how commercial cloud technologies can be instrumental in enhancing the collective cyber defense capabilities of international alliances.