Israel Cyber Cadets Train on Harry Potter-Inspired Battlefield

Bloomberg Business reports: The Israeli military’s elite Cyber Command is honing its skills at Hogwarts.

A small, handpicked group of computer wizards in the command’s officers training course will soon take what they learned in a recent one-week simulation to the virtual battlefield, where they’ll use their technological skills to defend their country.

During the course, cyber cadets from land, air and sea corps were assigned to groups named after houses at the school in the Harry Potter books. One exercise was based on Quidditch, the wizarding sport played on broomsticks. In another drill, an insider based on the series’ Severus Snape character infiltrated networks while Death Eaters attacked on the perimeters. Recruits both parried and carried out attacks on their fantasy enemies.

“The main challenge is taking people not trained in warfare, who have never seen an enemy face-to-face, and getting them used to being on high alert, to understanding that what they see may not just be background noise,” said the commander of the advanced officers’ technology training course, Major Nimrod Focsenianu. “Like a combat soldier who hears a sound in the bushes doesn’t assume it’s a cat.”

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