TL;DRThe FBI built a 22,000 sq ft replica town to train agents on live cyberattacks. It has a hospital, houses, and 200 servers. 1,400 students trained since Feb 2025.
The FBI has revealed a 22,000 square-foot replica town on its Huntsville, Alabama, campus built to train law enforcement in simulating and investigating real-world cyberattacks. The Kinetic Cyber Range opened in February 2025 and has trained more than 1,400 students, including FBI personnel and partners from other federal and local agencies.
The facility features fully furnished houses, a hotel, a gas station and grocery store, a courthouse, a hospital, and a power company. It has roads and traffic lights. Every building is wired with functioning devices and systems that behave as they would in a real US community, while preventing any simulated attacks from escaping the facility.
The range includes a data centre with more than 200 physical servers, some running Windows, some Linux, reflecting the corporate environments investigators encounter during breach responses and search warrants. “They’re cold, they’re cramped, they’re noisy, they’re dark, they’re miserable,” said Dave Beachboard, the range’s programme manager, describing the conditions investigators need to train for.
