In an effort to better combat cyber attacks IBM built a simulated version of the entire internet in a data center located in Massachusetts coined the “cyber range”. The cyber range is manned by former security experts from federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The cyber range is capable of simulating live malware, ransomware and other hacking tools type of cyber attacks. The end goal is to better prepare clients to recover from large scale cyber attacks. According to IBM many IT and security professional who they surveyed do not have an incident response plan in place. No one can stop all cyber attacks but having an incident response plan in place could be the deciding factor in determining if your business succeeds or fail if faced with that situation.
http://www.pcmag.com/news/349629/ibm-built-a-copy-of-the-internet-for-mock-cyberattacks
This project will make a huge difference if succeeded not only because of its magnitude and a first of its nature, but also will it help recovering from cyber attacks quicker. Implementing something like this should allow security professionals to prevent, detect, minimize and mitigate cyber attacks on a much larger scale compared to previously.