The average cost of a data breach skyrocketed to $4.35 million in 2022, a historic high, according to IBM Security’s ‘The Cost of a Data Breach Report.’
This concerning trend underscores the urgency for organizations worldwide to take proactive measures in preventing such incidents. Cyber training platforms offer a valuable solution by educating employees and bolstering their readiness against cyber threats and attacks.
In this article, we emphasize the vital role of cyber training platform in today’s digital landscape. Furthermore, we delve into the distinctions between hands-on training methodologies and theoretical cyber awareness training, exploring their relevance for different types of organizations.
Promoting cybersecurity awareness and educating employees on this critical topic is paramount for ensuring organizational safety and strengthening cyber resilience. In today’s digital landscape, employees must be well-informed about potential threats. Research indicates that in 2023, 74% of breaches involved the human element, encompassing social engineering attacks, errors, and misuse.
By providing employees with access to a cyber training platform, companies can take significant strides in preventing data breaches and phishing attacks, fostering a culture of security, and ensuring compliance with necessary regulations.
Broadly, organizations can offer two types of training to their employees: practical, hands-on training involving simulations and real-life scenarios, and cybersecurity awareness training sessions that take a more theoretical approach.
In the following sections, we will explore the benefits of each of these training categories.
The hands-on training approach equips participants with practical industry knowledge and helps them experiment with best practices. That way, employees learn about the industry’s latest trends, applications, and technologies they can use to make their organizations safer.
That said, organizations who actively invest in creating practical training sessions and exercises have higher chances of succeeding when facing various cyber threats and attacks in real life.
One more key advantage of the practical training approach in cybersecurity is that it serves as an ideal starting point for companies to develop powerful security measures.
At the same time, it helps organizations navigate through the process, letting management decide which practices they should consider implementing in their everyday operations.
Having a proper cyber training platform can be an invaluable tool for companies to ensure they meet regulatory compliance requirements in their industry.
That way, employees in the company are always aware of the latest regulations and know all about their importance in protecting the organization’s data system from potential cyber threats.
Cyber resilience refers to the ability of an organization to protect itself from, detect, respond to, and recover from potential cyber threats.
Improving this aspect of an organization is one of the most beneficial advantages that practical cybersecurity training can provide. Cyber attacks are constantly evolving, and it is becoming increasingly challenging to ensure safety.
The practical cyber training platform can provide this opportunity to train employees with the most advanced technology, giving them the knowledge they need to face cyber challenges in the future.
Organizing theoretical training sessions for employees will increase overall awareness and help them identify potential threats such as ransomware, malware, phishing, and more.
This way, businesses will effectively reduce their employees’ chances of becoming victims of cyber attacks by training them to recognize suspicious emails, links, or attachments.
It can be very costly for any business or organization to face a data breach. These costs generally include legal fees and reputational damage. However, companies can easily reduce risks if they conduct proper cybersecurity training sessions for employees.
Raising awareness about cybersecurity can also help with boosting your employee productivity level.
When your team members have the proper knowledge to identify and prevent threats, they spend less time researching, and primarily, their productivity levels go up, which can have a positive impact on organizations of any size.
It is important for businesses to build trust with their customers to grow their business exponentially. Incidents caused by cyber-attacks, such as data breaches, can significantly harm an organization’s reputation and trust level.
A proper cybersecurity training session can address this issue and help businesses show their customers that they take data protection seriously, which builds more trust in the long term.
When it comes to training your team and preparing an organization to face potential cyber threats and attacks, it is important to keep in mind that theoretical learning is key to an educational foundation. However, putting these learnings into practice is crucial for ensuring that training has been effective and useful for the organization’s staff.
There are a couple of factors to think about when deciding on which approach to choose for enhancing your organization’s cyber resilience.
The first factor is the stage of the company – this will help you understand your company’s current needs and identify key areas you need to improve with the help of cybersecurity training.
Another key factor to consider is the industry your organization operates in – for example, if the company has a critical infrastructure to take care of, then it is vital to make sure that team members are fully aware of potential threats in their domain.
Cyber ranges are simulated environments used by organizations to train cybersecurity professionals and conduct testing of incident response capabilities. These environments include simulated network infrastructure and tools, aiding organizations in preparing for cyber threats.
The primary goal of cyber ranges is to provide a secure training environment, enabling professionals to gain hands-on cyber skills for security testing and training. Importantly, they can virtualize diverse environments, facilitating skill development under various conditions.
Cyber ranges are interactive platforms that accurately replicate networks, systems, and applications. They play a pivotal role in cybersecurity testing, and training.
Using cyber range technology as a cyber training platform for your organization comes with lots of benefits. Let’s have a look at some of them:
Cyber ranges provide a highly controlled virtual environment where organizations can reuse and replicate training modules at any time they want without having a major impact on their systems and live networks.
This way, your team members have more flexibility to experiment and learn how to leverage new tools to improve their skill set, resulting in more hands-on training programs and an increased level of understanding among the team.
Besides providing a safe environment for training, cyber ranges are also known to be cost-effective solutions for training purposes. Given that your organization is using a virtual cyber range, their overall cost can be much lower than other training tools.
Cyber ranges are easy to deploy and configure. This is what makes them perfect tools for your team members to practice and improve their skills in cybersecurity.
Cyber range can also benefit your organization’s assessment and development efforts. It is especially useful when you want to understand your team member’s skills level and address their skills development needs if necessary.
This also creates a more effective environment for the management, making them more aware of what skills the team has already mastered and what areas need more attention and investment from their side.
Using a cyber range for training purposes also comes in handy when you need to test the skills of your potential hires and make sure they are a great fit for the team. Leveraging different exercises will help you ensure your candidate’s competency and see if they have the knowledge it takes to tackle real cybersecurity challenges at work.
Usually, it can be very challenging to properly understand the technical background and knowledge of a candidate during the selection process. With the help of cyber range, you can check how they work under pressure in real threat scenarios.
As the digital landscape evolves, the significance of having a proper cyber training platform cannot be overstated. Companies and organizations worldwide must embrace innovative training solutions like Cyber Range technology to educate their teams and enhance their cyber resilience.
CybExer Technologies has been a driving force in the cybersecurity landscape since 2016. Committed to enhancing global cybersecurity capabilities, CybExer offers an advanced Cyber Range platform, assisting enterprises with comprehensive cybersecurity training modules designed to elevate their readiness against potential threats.
Explore our success stories, such as the Threat Hunting Exercise in Helsinki, organized by the team of CybExer Technologies.
If you’d like to learn more about our offering and products, schedule a call with our cyber range experts to discuss your organization’s needs.