Inside the FBI’s Kinetic Cyber Range — FBI

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Inside the FBI’s Kinetic Cyber Range

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Kinetic Cyber Range

Where technical training meets reality

June 9, 2026

Inside the FBI's 22,000 square-foot indoor technical training environment in Huntsville

In a vehicle bay on the FBI's campus in Huntsville, Alabama, students lean into an open car, peeling back plastic and upholstery, tracing wires deep into the vehicle's interior. One by one, they work to extract the electronic control unit—the car's digital brain.<br>In a real investigation, the information it contains could help reconstruct where a vehicle has been, how it was used, and who may have been behind the wheel.<br>For now, it's an exercise.<br>"This is about as real as it's going to get before people go out in the field," said Dave Beachboard, who manages the FBI's Kinetic Cyber Range.

The 22,000-square-foot training environment resembles a small town built for investigations. Each space is wired with functioning systems, networks, and devices designed to behave as they would in the real world. Since opening in February 2025, the facility has trained more than 1,400 students,

The exercise, conducted in early April, reflects a broader shift in how the Bureau prepares agents, analysts, and forensic specialists for investigations that increasingly hinge on digital evidence. For years, much of that training took place in classrooms, where students learned tools and techniques at their desks before applying them later in the field.<br>"In the past, you never left the classroom," Beachboard said. "Everything was presented to you at your desk. You would process a cell phone or a piece of loose media, learn about servers. Everything was kind of theory-based, along with a little bit of hands-on."<br>At the FBI’s North Campus on Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, that model has been turned inside out.

The Kinetic Cyber Range—a 22,000-square-foot training environment on the FBI's campus in Huntsville—resembles a small town built for investigations.

Transcript / Visit Video Source

The Kinetic Cyber Range—a 22,000-square-foot training environment operated by the Bureau's Operational Technology Division—resembles a small town built for investigations. There are houses and hotel rooms, a power company, a hospital, and a gas station. Each space is wired with functioning systems, networks, and devices designed to behave as they would in the real world.<br>Since opening in February 2025, the facility has trained more than 1,400 students, including FBI personnel and partners from other agencies.<br>But the point isn't just scale. It's realism.

"The systems that we have running in these facilities are just as real as the facade on the outside," Beachboard said. "When they start diving into the network, they’re going to see Active Directory, email, firewalls—everything that's typical of that venue."<br>In one scenario, students move through a home filled with internet-connected devices and decide what to seize and what to leave behind. In another, they serve a search warrant at a business and work with system administrators to access data buried inside a corporate network.<br>Elsewhere, inside a data center, the training becomes more physical.<br>"I have a data center that has over 200 servers running in it," Beachboard said. "Some are running Windows, some are running Linux. So, a student gets to encounter what it's like working in a data center."<br>The conditions are deliberate.<br>"They're cold, they're cramped, they're noisy, they're dark, they're miserable," he said. "Again, recreating what it's like working in a data center."

"The systems that we have running in these facilities are just as real as the facade on the outside."

David Beachboard, KCR program manager, Operational Technology Division

The homes, businesses, and facilities are fully furnished and fully wired with the latest technologies.

The range is also where different parts of the FBI's mission converge.<br>The Operational Technology Division, which focuses on digital forensics, trains alongside the Cyber Division, which investigates computer intrusions—cases that often unfold across continents and rarely involve physical evidence.<br>"The success of our investigations and operations require the various job roles that make up a cyber squad working together," said Stephanie Cassioppi, who leads the unit running cyber training in Huntsville.<br>For cyber investigators, the work is...