Cyberbit reimagines the cybersecurity training curriculums using real-life cyber-simulation tools

Founded in the year 2015,Cyberbit solves one of the most acute cybersecurity problems: preparing the human element for attacks. It has been readily realized by Cyberbit’s founders that the only way to effectively prepare cyber defenders is to adopt the same approach used in flight simulation, enabling them to detect, respond, and remediate a real-world cyberattack before the attack. Cyberbit’s cloud and on-premise cyber ranges deliver over 100,000 training sessions annually across five continents. In a chat with VARINDIA, Rakesh Kharwal, MD-India, Cyberbit discusses about the current security trends and technologies.

Security trends in the pandemic era

As per a report by NASSCOM, India in 2025 would require a force of1 million cybersecurity professionals but has only 10% of the needed workforce. This indicates that there is a glaring skill deficit in the cyber-security architecture of the country as suggested by the staffing specialist firm Xpheno. Its research highlights that at present there are only 67,000 cybersecurity jobs available in the nation due to the lack of certified educational institutions that impart the necessary cybersecurity training to aspiring tech-professionals.

On the security trends during the remote working policy, Rakesh says, “With the overarching post-COVID-19 digital business transition to online pathways and organizations resorting to WFH policies for their employees, there is an urgent need for robust and adept cyber-security mechanisms to safeguard businesses. With the skill gap slated to increase with time due to the absence of real-time experiential and practical cybersecurity upskilling and training courses in universities and tech-institutes, our country needs to readdress and reimagine the cybersecurity training curriculums using real-life cyber-simulation tools to provide a hands-on learning and optimization process to tech-professionals.”

Leveraging the security technologies 

Amidst the coronavirus outbreak, Cyberbit’s utmost emphasis is on training employees and security teams to address human-weakness and to bridge the skills gap. Rakesh comments, “Since lockdown and remote working are making physical-training programs impossible, we are leveraging our Cyber Range solution to deliver remote training to professionals. This helps organizations to train their cybersecurity professionals in a simulated IT environment against evolved real-life cyberattacks using remotely accessible tools such as SIEM, Firewalls, EPP, andmore. The best part of a training in Cyber Range is that you will be able to experience the challenges of responding to real-life incidents in a distributed environment across the entire process of detecting, investigating, and remediating the attack. Further, these training exercises are mapped to the NICE Cybersecurity framework and designed to develop the NICE KSAs (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities) for Cybersecurity practitioners. Also, all the training scenarios included in the platform are mapped to the techniques and methodologies used by attackers as set out by MITRE ATT&CK framework.This will allow you to evaluate your current controls against the different attack vectors as classified within this matrix and ensuring your team will be prepared for inevitable attack when it comes.” 

Stepsto fight the pandemic 

To combat the increased occurrences of cybercrimes in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, Cyberbit announced that the company will provide $100,000 worth of free, remote cybersecurity training on their Cyber Range. The move is aimed to help organizations that face issues related to training continuity for their information security teams as a result of recent travel restrictions, quarantines, and social distancing. 

During this on-going pandemic situation, Rakesh expresses his concern on cybersecurity trainings. He says, “Unfortunately, since the outbreak of COVID-19, training for SOC staff worldwide has been put on hold. Travel to training courses is no longer an option and remote team members’ skill levels have been gradually deteriorating.”

According to him, “Since the Security Operations Center (SOC) is the heart of a mature information security organization, responsible for detecting, analyzing and responding to cybersecurity incidents, frequent hands-on training delivered by Cyberbit professionals are imperative for SOC teams to enhance their skill level. This enables them to successfully respond to security incidents which depend on their detection, investigation, and response skills. As per SANS SOC Survey undertakenin 2019, the lack of skilled staff is the most frequently cited SOC barrier to excellence. This need is even more critical today when SOC teams are transitioning to distributed and remote work, learning new ways to communicate, collaborate, and operate security systems in a post-COVID environment.” 

To help cybersecurity professionals 

Cyberbit, in order to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, has launched a novel competitive  cybersecurity league named the “Cybersecurity Champions League”. Rakesh pursues, “The league is focused on displaying India’s leading and emerging cybersecurity talent. The Cybersecurity Champions League, or CCL, is the first virtual league dedicated to cybersecurity professionals in the country. Throughout the course of the league season, contestants will be pitted against the best of their peers in a virtual corporate environment where real-world cyberattacks will be simulated. People who are working in corporates and managing SOC operations are eligible to participate in the contest.”

At last, it can be rightly said that ‘The Cybersecurity Champions League’ is a multi-stage contest where contestants will have to detect incidents, neutralize damages, alleviate the attack, and ensure their network is protected from the attack occurring the second time, all within a given time limit. “For those who are newer to cybersecurity, Cyberbit has assembled a library of materials for them to build their skills on the CCL site. With the launch of this league, Cyberbit is endeavouringto empower more individuals to consider a career in cybersecurity, actively helping to close the cyber skills gap in India,” concludes Rakesh.