TORCH

Mission-Ready Cyber Training & Operational Assessment

Located in Morgantown, West Virginia, the Tactical Operations Related to Cybersecurity Hub (TORCH) is an advanced cyber operations and training environment designed to strengthen mission assurance and defensive cyber capabilities.

TORCH serves as a centralized location where the West Virginia Army National Guard Cyber Operators and Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA) Mission Assurance Cybersecurity Assessors can train, assess, and evaluate cybersecurity vulnerabilities in realistic operational environments.

Rather than studying cyber threats in theory, participants experience how attacks affect operational technology (OT), industrial control systems (ICS), and mission-critical infrastructure, building the skills needed to defend the systems that support military operations and critical infrastructure.

TORCH enables cyber operators to recreate physical and logical operational environments to identify, assess, and evaluate cybersecurity vulnerabilities before they can impact real-world missions. Teams can safely test systems, validate security controls, and better understand how vulnerabilities affect operational readiness.

Through realistic cyber-physical environments, participants research, test, and quantify the operational impacts of exploited vulnerabilities. These exercises help organizations understand how cyber incidents affect mission execution and provide strategic leaders with actionable information to support informed decision-making.

TORCH provides immersive training that develops defensive cyber skills through practical, scenario-based exercises. Operators build proficiency in identifying threats, responding to attacks, protecting operational technology, and defending critical infrastructure in realistic mission environments.

TORCH fosters continuous learning through experimentation, collaboration, and hands-on problem-solving. Senior cyber professionals mentor developing operators, creating opportunities to transfer operational knowledge while encouraging innovation through trial, analysis, and lessons learned.

Raptor Island: Raptor Island features 87 hands-on capture-the-flag exercises using real industrial control system (ICS) hardware. Participants develop practical skills in operational technology fundamentals, PLC programming, network defense, and incident response through progressively challenging scenarios.

CyberTown: CyberTown is a fully integrated 3D smart city that demonstrates how cyber activity affects physical infrastructure. Featuring approximately 60 interconnected assets across power, water, transportation, commercial, residential, and military sectors, CyberTown enables participants to visualize the cascading effects of cyber-attacks while practicing defensive strategies in a realistic environment.

Custom Cyber Ranges: TORCH develops mission-specific IT and OT cyber ranges tailored to military, government, critical infrastructure, academic, and commercial organizations. These customized environments support realistic training, experimentation, operational planning, mission rehearsal, and cybersecurity research based on each organization’s unique operational requirements.

Training at TORCH helps defense organizations:

• Increase cyber readiness and defensive operational capabilities.
• Evaluate vulnerabilities in realistic mission environments.
• Improve mission assurance through risk-informed decision-making.
• Strengthen operational technology and critical infrastructure defense.
• Develop the next generation of cyber operators through hands-on mentoring and practical experience.
• Foster collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning across the cyber workforce.