HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA — The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) opened a 22,000-square-foot replica town facility called the Kinetic Cyber Range in Huntsville, Alabama, in February 2025. This facility is designed to train law enforcement personnel in investigating and simulating real-world cybersecurity incidents.

The Kinetic Cyber Range utilizes functional consumer and enterprise technologies within its training environment. The replica town features fully furnished houses, a hotel, a gas station, a grocery store, a courthouse, a hospital, a power company, roads, traffic lights, and a video arcade. A data center within the facility contains over 200 physical servers operating Windows and Linux systems. Each section of the training environment is wired with functional networks and devices that operate as they would in real communities, while preventing simulated cyberattacks from leaving the secure facility.

Since its opening, the Kinetic Cyber Range has trained more than 1,400 students, including agency personnel and law enforcement partners. Dave Beachboard, program manager for the facility, addressed the realism of the training. "This is about as real as it's going to get before people go out in the field." Beachboard said.

The training facility instructs investigators in digital forensics techniques for extracting data from encrypted electronic devices during criminal investigations. Beachboard said, "We try to keep the scenarios as real as possible. Everything's based off of past case studies."

An exercise in April involved participants responding to a simulated ransomware attack that disrupted a hospital network. During this exercise, students practiced extracting electronic control units from vehicles to determine location, usage history, and driver identification. The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report documented over one million complaints and $20.9 billion in U.S. cybercrime losses, a 26 percent increase from the previous year. The report also identified ransomware as the primary ongoing threat to critical infrastructure.