Mattermost is powering operational collaboration for Locked Shields 2026, the world's largest live‑fire cyber defence exercise. As both a sponsor and active contributor, Mattermost is developing DFIR challenges for Blue Teams and crafting new StratEX scenarios for national decision‑makers, bringing real‑world operational complexity into the exercise. With thousands of participants defending critical infrastructure under real‑time attack, Locked Shields demonstrates that cyber readiness is fully operational, not theoretical.
PALO ALTO, Calif., April 14, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Mattermost, a leader in secure, sovereign collaboration and mission-critical workflows, today announced its sponsorship and active contribution to Locked Shields, the internationally recognised cyber defence exercise organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE).
Locked Shields brings together cyber defence teams from allied and partner nations to defend national infrastructure under real-time attack conditions. The 2026 exercise will bring together thousands of participants across NATO and partner countries. Through its sponsorship, Mattermost reinforces its commitment to enabling secure, self-hosted collaboration in high-stakes operational environments.
Beyond sponsorship, Mattermost is directly contributing to the 2026 exercise by developing Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) challenges for Blue Teams and designing new scenarios within the Strategic Exercise (StratEX) for national decision-makers. These contributions bring real-world operational complexity into the exercise, reinforcing Mattermost's role in enabling coordinated response across technical and strategic layers of cyber defence.
"Cyber defence readiness is no longer theoretical — it is operational. Locked Shields represents the most advanced environment for testing how teams respond under real-world pressure. We are proud to contribute capabilities that reflect how modern defence organisations actually operate – across distributed teams, constrained environments, and high-stakes decision cycles," said Daniel Schalla, VP of Security and Infrastructure, Mattermost.
"Innovation in cyber defence requires constant experimentation with the tools that are most relevant to our training audience. Mattermost's contribution to the 2026 exercise brings an essential layer of operational reality to our scenarios, allowing us to test and refine incident response in a high-stakes environment. Their involvement helps ensure our collective defence remains as agile as the adversaries we're training to defeat," said Tõnis Saar, Director of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.
Mattermost's secure collaboration platform is trusted by defence organisations, government agencies, and critical infrastructure operators around the world. Its sponsorship and active participation in Locked Shields reflect the company's continued investment in the cyber defence ecosystem and its alignment with the values of integrity, professionalism, and accountability that underpin exercises like Locked Shields.
Locked Shields is a product of the CCDCOE and does not necessarily reflect the policy or opinion of NATO, any state, government, or agency.
About Mattermost
Mattermost provides secure, sovereign collaboration for organisations with the highest security and compliance requirements. Trusted by defence agencies and critical infrastructure operators globally, Mattermost enables secure, real-time communication and workflow automation in air-gapped and regulated environments.
Learn more at www.mattermost.com.
About Locked Shields / CCDCOE
Locked Shields is the world's largest and most complex live-fire cyber defence exercise, bringing together nearly 4,000 experts from over 40 nations to defend simulated national infrastructure against thousands of sophisticated real-time attacks. Spanning technical, legal, strategic, and communications domains, it represents the gold standard in collective cyber defence training. Locked Shields is organised by the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia.
For official updates and information, visit ccdcoe.org.
Media Contact:
Charlotte Brown
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Media Contact
Rosa Lear, Mattermost, 1 4087574362, [email protected], Mattermost.com
SOURCE Mattermost
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