Training the European workforce of tomorrow: cyber ranges in practice

Context - A fast evolving cyber threat landscape

Over the past years, malicious cyber activity has evolved and substantially increased with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and now the Ukraine crisis. Cyber criminals are taking advantage of this situation, constantly boosting their attacks to exploit vulnerabilities and flaws to acquire sensitive information, infiltrate private networks to steal data, or disrupt critical infrastructures.  

As Europe is accelerating its path toward the shift to a digital economy, the need for cybersecurity skilled staff has never been higher.  

A collaborative EU response

The last years have seen the development of a number of cyber range technologies, products, national and international initiatives to tackle the evolving cyberthreat landscape thanks to innovative but realistic forms of training to emulate real environments that fully replicate what can be faced in daily life. 

The webinar focussed on a set of cyber ranges simulating realistic domain environments, equipment, infrastructures and data developed by three EC funded initiatives: CONCORDIA, SPIDER and FORESIGHT. 

Each project presented current progress, best practices and technical insights together with a practical demonstration of the respective cyber ranges as virtual training environments and how they can be used to simulate cyber incidents and attacks so IT professionals can hone their skills and prepare for real-world circumstances. 

Finally, a panel discussion moderated by ECSO looked at how Europe is bringing together different initiatives with the aim of tackling the cybersecurity skills gap and how R&I projects can play an active role producing practical tools and services to address it quickly and comprehensively.        

Target Audience

Given that cybersecurity is not just an IT issue, the event will cater for both IT specialists and a wider audience including employees from all departments and at all levels of seniority. 

Agenda

The event was jointly organised by:

• CONCORDIA (Cyber security cOmpeteNCe fOr Research anD InnovAtion) -  www.concordia-h2020.eu - Grant Agreement No. 830927

• SPIDER (a cyberSecurity Platform for vIrtualiseD 5G cybEr Range services) - www.spider-h2020.eu  - Grant Agreement No. 833685

• FORESIGHT (Advanced cyber-security simulation platform for preparedness training in Aviation, Naval and Power-grid environments) - www.foresight-h2020.eu  - Grant Agreement No. 833673

With the support of the Horizon Results Booster service of the European Commission.