As the adage goes, practice makes perfect. This is true of all skills, including protecting your organization’s valuable assets and customer data from cyberattacks.
However, until recently, the available technology for providing these practice environments was either too hard to establish and maintain or expensive and uncustomizable to be practical.
Fortunately, with the SimSpace Cyber Force Platform, which provides a robust, high-fidelity virtual environment called a cyber range, organizations of all sizes and industries, operations can easily replicate threat scenarios. This allows cybersecurity professionals to exercise and hone their defense and response capabilities in a safe and secure environment.
Although the technology and infrastructure that enable cyber ranges are well established, the broader use of cyber ranges is relatively new, which means that there may still be some key foundational questions about what they are and what they can do for an organization.
That’s why the professionals at SimSpace have pulled together this list of the critical things you need to know.
What is a cyber range?
Cyber ranges are virtualized environments designed to simulate your existing network infrastructure using virtual machines to create real-world attack and response scenarios or test different variables.
In short, cyber ranges are the perfect solution for organizations looking to get serious about their team preparedness for the cyber threats of today and tomorrow and take them to the next level.
More specifically, cyber ranges can also be used to simulate different cyberattack situations, ranging from the worst-case scenarios your team can imagine to crippling distributed denial of services (DDoS) attacks, phishing attempts, ransomware, and everything in between.
Who uses cyber ranges?
Cyber ranges were developed, tested, and earned their place in cybersecurity first with governments and other organizations with plenty of in-house resources and money to fund and maintain them.
Not anymore.
Thanks to platforms like SimSpace, every organization can tap into the training and other benefits that cyber ranges offer at the scale and implementation right for them and their needs.
When can cyber ranges be used?
A cyber range, like that offered by SimSpace, gives your organization the ability to test security measures and deploy new environments whenever and as often as you need to, such as when new tools, policies, and techniques need to be evaluated.
Another option is to use other regular testing, maintenance, and evaluation milestones as triggers to perform scenarios in a cyber range. This way, in addition to traditional quality assurance testing in development instances, your organization tests for other security and policy issues in a more production-like environment within the cyber range – without exposing your actual production network.
Where can cyber ranges be deployed?
This is another area where developments in the industry have benefited organizations like yours.
For example, partners like SimSpace make it easy for your organization to choose a suitable delivery model for your business and security needs. Whether you need an on-premises deployment that your organization can control, a SaaS offering tailored to your needs, or a completely hosted range for specialized testing, your team can have the right cyber range for their operations.
(Bonus!) Why are cyber ranges an excellent security tool?
No matter where your organization is on the cybersecurity maturity curve, cyber ranges are proven in their ability to help organizations strengthen their security, incident response, software testing, and professional development in a safe environment.
And whether setting up a scenario to test how your organization responds to a zero-day threat or even an accidental employee data spill, your cybersecurity professionals will have the experience they need – beyond the textbook – to know what to do when it counts in an actual situation.
Ready to take the next step?
Whether you’re looking for professional development, realistic tool testing, or a way for your organization to take its incident response to the next level, cyber ranges are excellent tools to get it done.
And when you need a partner with the experience and flexibility to deliver the cyber range technology you need when you need it, you can turn to SimSpace.
Click here to request your own demo.
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