Organizations worldwide are increasingly embracing innovative cyber training solutions like cyber range and helping their teams boost their cyber preparedness by utilizing various exercises this technology offers.
However, there are lots of other use cases where this technology can be extremely useful, and in today’s article, we will share 5 big challenges that cyber range can help your organization solve.
What Is a Cyber Range?
A cyber range is a platform that enables simulated environments for training cybersecurity professionals and solving an organization’s issues with cyber preparedness. They typically include simulated network infrastructure, systems, and tools, as well as scenarios for various types of cyber attacks for practicing and skills-testing.
Generally, cyber ranges are being used for:
- Help assess the organization’s cyber readiness in realistic cyber attack scenarios and identify areas for development
- Improve and practice team collaboration skills in simulated cyber attack scenarios
- Address individual cyber skills development needs
- Measure the effectiveness of cyber training efforts
Additionally, cyber ranges are perfect for testing and R&D purposes, allowing organizations to test new technologies, tools, and techniques, evaluate new security controls, and explore emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning in the cyber security context.
What Are the Challenges That Cyber Ranges Help Organizations Solve?
Now that we have an understanding of what cyber range is let’s have a look at the challenges it helps different organizations and enterprises overcome:
Address Skills Gaps of Your Individual Employees in the Cybersecurity Field
Addressing the skills gap is a big part of taking care of your organization’s cyber preparedness – Cyber range is a valuable resource for anyone looking to address skills gaps among their employees.
By utilizing regular training such as e-learning courses, individual skills testing, and Capture-the-Flag (CTF) challenges, organizations can ensure that their employees have the necessary skills to protect their organizations against cyber threats and maintain the security of their digital assets.
E-learning courses are a convenient and flexible way for employees to gain knowledge and develop their cybersecurity skills. Cyber ranges often host online courses that employees can take at their own pace.
Individual skills testing, on the other hand, helps address skills gaps. This way, organizations can give their employees assessments and test their knowledge in the field of cybersecurity.
CTF (Capture the Flag) challenge is a fun and engaging way for employees to put their skills to test in a real-world setting. In these challenges, employees are presented with various scenarios and must use their problem-solving skills to complete tasks and earn points.
Enhance Cybersecurity Skills of the Entire Organization
Cyber ranges provide a valuable opportunity for organizations to enhance their cyber security skills and improve their overall security posture.
Red teaming exercises challenge organizations to think from the perspective of an attacker and find vulnerabilities in their systems and processes. This way, organizations can identify gaps in their security process and improve their defensive capabilities.
Live-fire exercises involve simulating real-world cyber attacks and giving teams the opportunity to respond and resolve the issue as if it was a real-world scenario. These exercises help teams build their response and resolution skills, while also testing the effectiveness of their incident response plans.
Threat-hunting exercises challenge teams to proactively search for and identify potential threats within their systems. These exercises help organizations to improve their threat detection capabilities and respond more quickly to potential threats.
By working together to solve complex problems, teams also build a sense of community, which not only enhances the morale of the team, but also leads to better collaboration and communication.
Reliable Platform for Executing Your Existing Cybersecurity Training Content
Cyber ranges can help organizations boost their cyber preparedness by providing a platform for running their own customized training and educational programs.
The platform allows you to upload your own content and run customized training programs that align with an organization’s specific needs and objectives.
With a flexible platform, organizations can run training sessions that are tailored to their specific operational technology (OT) systems and infrastructure, such as industrial control systems (ICS), or a training program that focuses on simulating a specific cyber threat scenario relevant to their industry.
Customized training can also be designed to target specific roles within the organization, such as incident responders, system administrators, or security analysts.
It is important to keep in mind that the training doesn’t have to specialize only in the cybersecurity field – cyber range technology has the ability to host any suitable customized training session the organization wishes to have.
Conducting an Audit for Compliance Purposes
Cyber ranges can assist an organization in auditing and reporting its cybersecurity skills by providing data and insights on the performance of individual employees during the exercises and assessments.
For example, through a red teaming exercise, the cyber range can provide a detailed report on the strengths and weaknesses of the organization’s defense, including specific vulnerabilities and areas for improvement.
Similarly, after participating in a live-fire exercise, cyber range technology can provide a report on the organization’s incident response capabilities, including the speed and effectiveness of the response and areas for improvement.
Organizations can use this information to conduct internal audits and assess the effectiveness of their training programs. At the same time, this data can help prepare external reports and demonstrate the organization’s commitment to cybersecurity to different stakeholders, such as regulators, investors, and customers.
R&D and Technology Testing Program Cost Efficiency Optimization
Using cyber ranges for R&D and technology testing programs can lead to reduced costs, improved efficiency, and faster time-to-market for organizations.
Particularly using the digital twin approach – replicating a live technical setup or just limited parts of it using a cyber range – can significantly reduce the cost of testing and validating the robustness of the live system.
A digital twin built on a cyber range can be easily scaled to accommodate large-scale testing and experimentation with limited resources and efforts, further enhancing the overall cyber preparedness of an organization.
Cyber ranges also provide virtual testing environments for Research and Development (R&D) purposes and experimenting with new technologies. This eliminates the need for physical testing environments, reducing costs associated with hardware, equipment, and physical facilities.
CybExer Technologies – Leading the Way to Cyber Excellence
When it comes to solving cybersecurity-related challenges within an organization, management teams and decision makers worldwide have to embrace innovative solutions like Cyber Range, which will help them educate their teams and enhance their cyber preparedness.
CybExer Technologies has been a driving force in the cybersecurity landscape since 2016. Our platform has been continuously assisting enterprises with comprehensive cybersecurity training modules designed to elevate their readiness against potential cyber threats and attacks.
If you’d like to learn more about our products and offering feel free to schedule a call with our cybersecurity experts to discuss your organization’s needs.
