Delivering Real-World Experience with Cyber Simulations

Created May 2019

As technology changes, the current cyber workforce must find ways to evolve to meet new threats and challenges. To help develop the elite skills that cyber teams need to safeguard networks and assets, the Cyber Workforce Development team at the SEI builds realistic simulations that model the experience of real-world challenges. These simulations offer more than just quality content; they offer cyber operators a way to familiarize themselves with the pace and pressure of real scenarios, what it takes to perform well under those conditions, and how to succeed as a team.

Is My Cyber-Team Training Good Enough?

In the field of cybersecurity, your organization must always ask if its cyber teams are equipped to handle new and evolving threats that arise through the innovative and tireless work of attackers. These malicious agents are always looking for new ways to gain the upper hand by developing new methods to remain undetected. How can you prepare to defend against attackers that are always working to find new and unexpected ways to attack networks?

If cyber teams learn to work together and gain experience under pressure only when they begin defending against real threats, then we are giving attackers the upper hand. Training and exercises are key for preparing cyber operators to work together effectively, but how can you know that your training is good enough to meet today’s challenges?

Training often focuses on teaching cyber operators how to use the tools at their disposal, but to be truly effective, cyber operators must learn to use those tools under the pressures of real environments to develop elite skill sets. To create training that puts cyber operators in environments with those kinds of pressures, simulations must replicate the social and technical interactions that cyber teams face every day. More, these simulations must teach cyber operators to work together and bolster their sense of teamwork and confidence.

The problem is that these kinds of simulations are difficult to create, which leaves organizations without ready access to collective training that is engaging and effective. Some organizations rely on one or several contractors to build the pieces of those simulations, leading to exercises and training that feel cobbled together without a unified experience that targets training objectives or builds elite skills.

Simulations That Build Elite Teams

The SEI creates realistic simulations and builds unified exercises that train your cyber operators to become seasoned and elite teams. The SEI’s approach delivers the complete cyber-defense experience, from populating the simulated world with realistic content, NPCs, scenarios, and stories, to maintaining a seamlessness between all components as well as complete control of the experience throughout the exercise.

Our simulations deliver culminating training events that bring together individuals and teams in live-fire exercises that reinforce and validate understanding of key objectives. We create hands-on training exercises that are injected with real-world threats so that cyber teams can effectively train and learn best practices for cyber professionals. Scenario developers model the targeted network and simulate the expected network traffic patterns in order to produce a realistic rehearsal. During the rehearsal, the team becomes familiar with the target, sharpens their team capabilities, and expands their overall proficiency.

We can work with your organization either onsite or virtually to help you put together the right kind of training engagement that will improve the performance of your cyber program and teams. By capturing the right level of realism, our frameworks deliver an experience that you can’t get with traditional training programs. We can help your cyber teams gain experience that is as close to real world as possible and ensure they are performing at the highest levels. Our simulations will build your confidence knowing that your teams can prioritize actions when pressure increases, and that each member can work effectively together.

Software Engineering Institute