A full-scale simulated cyberattack, dubbed Cyber Storm III, in the US will gauge how efficient the country is in tackling any real attack, and will teach cybersecurity experts valuable lessons, the Department of Homeland Security said.

Phil Reitinger, deputy undersecretary of the DHS National Protection & Programs Directorate, said that the three to four-day exercise would judge the ability of government agencies as well as more than sixty private-sector organizations to cooperate each other during a real cyber attack.

Apart from national government and non-government organizations, international partners include Britain, Canada, France, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, Japan, Italy and the Netherlands.

Reitinger said that coordination among federal, states, private sector and international partners is must to ensure the security of the country’s cyber infrastructure.

Speaking on the massive exercise, he said, “One of the things that's critical to recognize about cyberspace is this is beyond the capability of any one government agency to respond to, or even one government or one private sector entity.”

Cyber Storm III includes a potential for over 1,500 "injects" and individual events that can be injected into the scenario.

Previous simulated cyberattack, Cyber Storm I and Cyber Storm II, were exercised in February 2006 and March 2008, respectively.