To stay ahead in a digital world of sophisticated adversaries focused on attacking companies, countries, and the technologies we use on a daily basis, we need People armed with security knowledge and experience. At Symantec we have a laser focus on building, growing, and maintaining security IQ for both our own experts, as well as enabling customers to develop security practitioners with real world experience. Symantec’s Cyber Security Services business is focused on solutions built to create a more secure enterprise by combining the power of People with Technology. One of our innovative solutions in this area is a cyber wargames simulation, which helps organizations sharpen the skills and harness the power of their most valued asset, their People.
Today there is widening gap of cybersecurity professionals needed and available talent, leaving organizations ill-prepared to detect, respond, and remediate attacks. Fewer than two-thirds of organizations believe they have the staff or skillset necessary to address today’s growing cybersecurity challenges. Enterprises, universities, war colleges, government and industry leaders all need an ecosystem to build their security IQ and grow the cyber talent pool. As the world’s largest cybersecurity company, we acutely recognize the importance of this and built a sophisticated program to enable hands-on cyber training. When we look at other high-risk environments like medicine or aviation, immersive learning through simulation is common practice to ensure safe outcomes. By applying that same approach to cybersecurity,organizations will gain the advantage of having security practitioners ready to face a broad array of attacks, attackers, and operational security scenarios that exist in the wild. Otherwise, the current gap of cyber readiness ultimately increases incident response time and business impact for an organization when they are actively attacked.
To address this challenge, Symantec developed immersive live-fire simulation solutions that provide security professionals the critical operational experience necessary to fight cyber battles. Our innovative approach includes both cloud-based and physical environments which makes the immersive experience real—going beyond teaching the theoretical to providing professionals with a safe mock-world to learn under fire how to get ahead of cyber threats.
As a lever for continued success, Symantec has acquired start-up Blackfin Security, a leader in cyber skills development, to accelerate innovation for our new Security Simulation solutions. By expanding the Symantec team with Blackfin’s security talent and technical expertise, including their industry recognized Hacker Academy, we are positioned to advance the industry with new, forward-looking virtual-reality cyber programs focused on bridging the cyber skills gap for companies and countries.
Symantec is leading the security industry by looking at skills development from a customer lens and actively developing new solutions, which enables organizations to combat the attacker by building cyber warriors. Together, we can solve the biggest challenges we face today and shift the tide in the fight against adversaries.