Cybersecurity training needs to evolve to allow organizations to keep up with today’s sophisticated threat actors, according to Max Vetter, CCO at Immersive Labs.
Vetter was talking at the Infosecurity Europe 2019 event at Kensington Olympia, London today (June 4). During the session, Vetter highlighted the need for innovation in order to match the tools and techniques used by cyber-criminals.
“Attackers’ ability to innovate means they have first mover advantage. If the criminals didn’t innovate, we would have already won,” he told the audience at the conference’s Strategy Talks theatre.
It is creating a need to cultivate the right skills, according to Vetter: “How can we teach people to make sure they can keep ahead of the hackers, legally, while being able to innovate as well?”
Vetter thinks the only way to cultivate the level of talent needed to keep up with cyber-criminals is a shake-up of the way cybersecurity training is done. He points out that current methods often fail because they are “out of date, expensive and trainer dependent” with a “rigid learning style”.
“Certifications are the only way we can do it at the moment, but this method is not great,” Vetter said.
According to Vetter, businesses often make the error of focusing on Red Teams to test systems’ resilience. However, Blue Teams to defend an organization are just as important, he told the audience.
By shaking up the way security professionals are trained, using industry-standard MITRE ATT&CK framework, Vetter thinks organizations can ensure they are one step ahead of attackers.
Specifically, Vetter advocates intelligence-led training to give young hackers the skills to do their job. He advocates being “hands-on, flexible and outcome focused” and to “measure skills and success”.
“We are losing,” says Vetter. “We need to do better at developing people with these skills rather than sending them to jail.”