A virtual abode that companies can use for cyberwarfare and cyberattacks combatting techniques and software testing services is referred to as Cyber Range. These complex IT environments allow companies to get hands-on experiences in handling specific real-world scenarios, train employees and customers on the latest threats, and are important for tackling modern cyberattacks and data breaches. Cyber ranges are being actively used by the military and government agencies, private organizations(software development and cybersecurity), and other private entities with a focus on cybersecurity.
What is a Cyber Range used for?
Cyber ranges are useful and offer a number of advantages to an organization. The employees can leverage the new tools and methods, experiment more freely, and not be afraid of having negative effects on the organizations’ critical infrastructure. This way, the organization can drastically up-level the training programs, improve cybersecurity skills, and quickly identify team members that have the perfect traits of cybersecurity experts. The most common use case is scenario training. For example, the organization gives a group of participants access to the cyber range and brief the scenarios to the, and put a few tasks to achieve the end goal within a set amount of time period. Scenarios are supposed to be quite explicit and elaborate and the participants need to be competitive to achieve them. Once the target is achieved within the minimum time frame, a group of participants is given access to the cyber range, a debrief of the scenario, and a list of objectives to complete within a set amount of time.
Cyber ranges are also ideal for mission rehearsal. A cyber range is invaluable for the complex upgrades and configuration changes. The mission needs to be mock executed, many times before going live in the production server. Using a cyber range for practice alleviates the uncertainty of what will happen and reduces the potential downtime a failed operation may incur. However, a cyber range can be used to train and assess employees and potential ones. Using a cyber range, you don’t have to expose employees to core, critical infrastructure, rather it should help identify the can-do candidates in the team.
How do you choose the best Cyber Range for your needs?
Cyber ranges vary according to the scenarios. For example, a group of school students score a few old computers, create small networks, complete the webserver run in web apps, and practice application penetration. This would make sense for a user case of cyber range. Such cases for the cyber range are easy to identify. Byt this can have a lot of back work and calculations and can become very limited in a small amount of time. In the example, the candidate who penetrates the web application wins and others can learn from the person who won.
A more sophisticated cyber range will take the pros of virtualization and enterprise-level hardware. Even in penetration testing services, cyber ranges can be very useful as they allow for more centralized administration and quick adjustments with minimal effort.
An effective cyber range gives advantages of virtualization technology and virtual machines that make the cyber range intuitive at a large scale and adjust and account for users, teams, scoring, and metrics. The environments are dynamic and adjustable by the moderators at any time, if required. This functionality should be seamless to users and not require administrators, content authors, or instructors to be experts in virtualization platforms. A functional cyber range provides insightful views depending on the different roles. For example, moderators are given the central view from their dashboard to monitor each participant’s actions and progress. Moderators need a report of how the different employees or candidates scored.
A good cyber range also guarantees the content is reusable and easy to modify again and again. By reusing content, like a preconfigured network for both the basic and advanced course, a course author can create two courses at a significantly faster pace than if the network had to be redefined from scratch each time. It is how a team can practice an operation repeatedly with the click of a button. To create an effective cybersecurity training program, a cyber range with these capabilities is essential.
Benefits of Cyber Range Solutions
With cyberattacks on the rise, there’s a real need for additional training to train corporates and government officials to handle major threats as they appear. Even the security testing agencies have been using the use cases to prepare the testers to safeguard the interests of the client’s data.
Virtual cyber ranges offer many advantages to security testers that can help your organization prepare and deal with potential threats. These advantages include:
1. Experiencing real-world threats in a safe environment
Cyber ranges allow your teams to experience real-world cyber threats in a virtual environment. These experiments are controlled and you can set the parameters an individual will experience, and you can repeat the use case as many times as you want.
2. Learn how to recognize and handle threats
As the team is trained against modern threats, the testing teams will learn how to identify potential threats and deal with them effectively.
3. Validate your proof of concepts
Software testing can use cyber range applications to determine virtual POCs. The testing possibilities make cyber ranges the perfect choice for verifying new ideas, testing market viability, and more.
4. Save your business time and money
Security testing labs are a cost-effective approach to cybersecurity, being easily deployable and requiring less capital as they need to be set just once.
5. Virtual environments are always up to date
Once the cybersecurity labs are established, it’s easy for the development team to make new updates and exploit new features, as the testing team is available to combat any sort of security breach and test against the threats the organization gets.
6. Scale-up as you grow
On-premise labs are costly to upgrade and maintain. With a Security testing partner with a virtual environment, you only pay for the resources you need. You can scale them up as you grow, and future-proof your company.
Implement cyber range technology with an entrusted security testing partner
The latest Cloud-based solutions are gaining popularity for the flexibility they provide in Cyber Range. Having a trusted Security Testing Partner who has access to full proof cybersecurity labs is the most viable and effective solution to your business problems. A better approach is to analyse your needs before beginning your hunt for the most suitable partner. The right testing expert can offer dedicated cyber ranges, virtual IT labs, and other platforms that are capable of servicing your cybersecurity needs well.
Happy Testing!
