The trainee experience is critical to the efficacy of the Cyber Range experience. The better the experience is, the more your trainees will learn, the better they will be able to perform while employed in a security operations center. Following feedback sessions and a significant amount of market research, we are proud to present the new trainee experience, focused on improving the way SOC team members, cybersecurity professionals, and cybersecurity hopefuls prepare themselves to defend their organization from malicious threat actors.

A New, Better, More Streamlined Way to Train

Cyberbit Range ensures your team is prepared for the inevitable attack. We do so by immersing your team in the world’s leading SOC simulator which contains real-world attacks on virtual corporate grade networks to be resolved by commercial-grade tools. Now, we have made this experience even better, focusing trainees on the training at hand and maximizing a trainee’s valuable time to ensure that training becomes even more effective and efficient.

Focused on Improving Trainees from the Start

Beginning with a new, seamless onboarding process, the trainee experience has been optimized, refined, and rebuilt to ensure that SOC team members are always improving. From the first moment your trainee enters their personalized training zone, they are receiving constructive feedback. Old training sessions and their debriefing dashboards are saved from prior sessions for continued review of past performance providing trainees with the feedback required to improve their skillset. Trainees will also be able to view upcoming training sessions, the parameters set for the training, and which teammates will be participating in the training.

All the Required Background Before You Start Training

Familiarizing trainees with the network, tools, credentials, or any other prior to the start of a training session ensures that their time is spent efficiently and most effectively during the training session. All the information required is now provided to the trainees prior to the start of the training session.  To retrieve this information, you simply log in and are greeted by a four-step process.

Context is Important, Very Important

For training to be truly effective, your trainees must understand the context of the situation and network activity. Trainees are provided with enough backstory and context to begin their investigation without revealing attack type, vectors, or evidence location to ensure that trainees can discover this information throughout their training, just like the real world.

Get to Know the Network Before You Train on It

Cyberbit Range includes complete enterprise-grade networks with over 60 components included. Becoming familiar with this network environment while also trying to mitigate a live attack is counterproductive to the purpose of the training session. Most cybersecurity professionals do not begin mitigating attacks their first day on the job; they familiarize themselves with the network over time. Working within the parameters of a training platform, we provide trainees with the network in advance of the training session to ensure they can become as familiar with it as possible. Included in the network familiarity is the network map, all network information, and all tools including login information for each tool.

Train with More Resources

In our ever-present goal of spending more time training and less time trying to figure out how things work, we have also rebuilt the “Mission” phase of your training session. Now that trainees are familiar with the background, network, tools, and any other relevant information, they can enter their virtual station to begin mitigating the attack in progress.

We’ve also overhauled the way users are scored, allowing them to document any findings during the investigation phase into the trainee application. Users simply document their findings and are scored based on the accuracy of their findings. Mitigating an attack and receiving recognition has also become simpler. Your trainee should take the steps required to mitigate an attack and simply click one button to see if the steps taken were successful.

Receiving hints has also become easier for trainees. Trainees can now receive helpful information by clicking on the “hint” icon included in the trainee application ensuring the trainee is receiving the relevant hint for the step they are attempting to either investigate or solve.

Debrief Immediately Following a Training Session

Receiving immediate feedback while your actions are still fresh in your head is key to adjusting behaviors or creating new muscle-memory instincts. Trainees will not remember over time what actions they took in detail as well as immediate feedback. We know that instructors are not always there to provide feedback so our system will show trainees which steps they missed, which actions they should have taken, and their total score so that they can immediately begin to internalize adjustments or discover areas for improvement on the theoretical side.

Cyberbit Range is a significantly upgraded experience for trainees. The focus of the trainee application is grounded in educational theory, focusing on providing trainees with enough information to effectively train while automatically providing feedback to build muscle-memory level responses as quickly and effectively as possible. With the global skills gap continuing to widen, Cyberbit Range can help you to create quality cybersecurity professionals efficiently and effectively.