• The FBI has built an entire town to help train its agents
• The town contains houses, businesses, and 200 hackable servers
• The idea is to give agents hands-on experience so they’re ready for the field

In the never-ending cat-and-mouse game between hackers and law enforcement, it helps the latter to know exactly what they’re up against. Usually, that might mean sitting in a classroom and getting a little hands-on time with a hacked server or laptop. But that’s not the case with the FBI’s Kinetic Cyber Range — no, this time the US’s Federal Bureau of Investigation went out and built a whole town to keep itself sharp.

The 22,000-square-foot Kinetic Cyber Range is built to be as lifelike as possible. Pay it a visit, and you’ll find 11 different facilities, including houses, a data center, a gaming arcade, a convenience store, a hotel, and much more. It’s designed to replicate the kind of town you might find anywhere in America, yet it’s all contained within an enormous hangar at the FBI’s training campus in Huntsville, Alabama.

All the businesses and tech in the ersatz community can be hacked, allowing students to put their skills to the test. Would-be cyber officers will encounter firewalls, email systems, file directories, and more, helping to prepare them for future digital investigations. That said, the Kinetic Cyber Range is designed to ensure that nothing nefarious spills out of its secure bounds and into the wider world.

In addition to the FBI, the facility can be used by NASA, the US Army, and local law enforcement agencies. The idea is to get people up to speed with the latest cyber techs — including drone software, vehicle forensics, and the internet of things.

Facing emerging threats

Given how incredibly lucrative the cybercrime industry is for hackers and fraudsters, it makes sense for law enforcement to seek as much real-world, hands-on time as possible. Theory alone will only provide so much education, and without encountering the kinds of situations you might find in the real world, FBI agents will be a step behind their adversaries.

Speaking on the FBI’s YouTube channel, David Beachboard, Program Manager of the Kinetic Cyber Range, described the training location as “one of a kind” and said that “there is no facility like this in the world … This is about as real as it’s going to get before people go out in the field.”

Interestingly, students at the center will also be involved in various roleplay exercises that mimic those they’ll encounter outside the facility, from conducting interviews with business executives whose premises are being searched to dealing with medical staff who are concerned for patient welfare in the middle of a ransomware attack. It’s these scenarios that are difficult or impossible to fully replicate inside a classroom.

According to the FBI, more than 1,400 students have passed through the Kinetic Cyber Range since its opening in February 2025, with the training being regularly updated to cover emerging threats. As threat actors evolve, so too must those attempting to stop them. No doubt Beachboard and the FBI hope the Kinetic Cyber Range will play a key role in doing just that.

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Alex Blake has been fooling around with computers since the early 1990s, and since that time he's learned a thing or two about tech. No more than two things, though. That's all his brain can hold. As well as TechRadar, Alex writes for iMore, Digital Trends and Creative Bloq, among others. He was previously commissioning editor at MacFormat magazine. That means he mostly covers the world of Apple and its latest products, but also Windows, computer peripherals, mobile apps, and much more beyond. When not writing, you can find him hiking the English countryside and gaming on his PC.