New Baltimore Cyber Range Addresses Need for Industrial Cybersecurity Training & Simulation

Sophisticated simulation and training centers have increasingly found their way into many sectors of manufacturing, infrastructure, and smart cities. Most of these, however, tend to focus on operations, while relatively little attention has been paid to high fidelity simulation and training for cybersecurity related issues. Companies recognize that sophisticated attackers can overcome even the best defenses, and attention has shifted to minimizing the impact of successful intrusions.

Good training is a fundamental part of having a good proactive defense and a good response plan. Organizations like SANS Institute, for example, are finding great success meeting the huge demand for cybersecurity training. Earlier this month, Baltimore Cyber Range, in a partnership with cybersecurity provider Cyberbit, announced a new Baltimore Cyber Range (BCR) cybersecurity training and simulation center in Baltimore, MD. The new training center provides simulation training for cybersecurity professionals to protect national assets and infrastructure against cyberattacks.

High Fidelity Cybersecurity Simulation

Powered by the Cyberbit Range training and simulation platform, The Baltimore Cyber Range uses a “hyper-realistic virtual network environment”, advanced network tools, and real-world attack scenarios for those in academia, government, and industry. The Range generates a virtual environment that allows professionals to train and perform testing in a hands-on, real world, and safe environment. The Range supports replication of complex enterprise networks that provide models for training and targets for real-world attacks. The system includes the integrated, industry standard, network management tools and traffic generators required to simulate a real-world, operating network. For training critical infrastructure security professionals, the center includes actual SCADA and control system hardware and training scenarios that were designed to simulate ICS/SCADA attacks. The Range will train students and industry professionals for hands-on security operation center (SOC) operations training, attack familiarization, attack detection, and compromise remediation.

Having the tools and people to manage incident response effectively reduces the chances of the incident resulting in a breach, compromising sensitive data, physical damage to critical infrastructure, or unplanned downtime. The extreme lack of industrial cybersecurity experts aggravates this situation and supports the need for training and training simulators.