How to effectively upskill your CyberSec team

An investment in your team is an investment in your business, and there’s no better investment than team training. Not only does it help boost morale, increase retention, and improve engagement, it also helps your business earn more money. A study conducted by Accenture found that companies that utilized team training received a 353% return on their investment. 

If you’re looking to save time, make more money, and improve the efficiency of your team, below are five ways to make it happen.

Engage in hands-on training to improve team performance

Understanding cybersecurity concepts is critical to success in any role, but being able to carry out the responsibilities of your job under pressure and in evolving situations is vital. 

Hands-on training enables your team to engage in sandbox environments that mimic real-world infrastructure without fear of making a mistake that could cause lasting damage to their company. In addition, you can improve your team’s performance, cohesiveness, and ability to take action while helping identify strengths and weaknesses.

RS2, a leading provider of global payment solutions, has used hands-on training to boost learning by 150% as well as:

• Improve the security team's technical knowledge and keep it as current as possible.

• Satisfy compliance requirements such as PCI DSS, SSF, and PCI PIN.

• Provide a safe environment for the team to exercise in real-world scenarios based on common vulnerabilities including unpatched systems, misconfigurations, and non-secure coding practices.

• Establish and share a consistent standard of knowledge between employees.

• Fully optimize limited training time for busy employees.

You can find out more by checking out our RS2 customer story.

Some of the hands-on labs available on the HTB platform.

Align training material with organizational needs and goals

No two businesses and no two teams are the same, which often causes difficulties for organizations exploring cybersecurity training opportunities. This was made evident in the results from our 2022 Hack The Box Business CTF competition. After collecting data from 657 corporate teams and 2,979 cybersecurity professionals, we found government, manufacturing, healthcare, and education teams showed less cyber attack readiness than security, technology, and consulting firms, identifying a significant and critical skills gap in teams responsible for securing and maintaining global infrastructure. You can take a closer look at how each industry performed by downloading our Cyber Attack Readiness Report.

Fortunately, there are solutions available that allow you to create custom training content exclusively for your team and organization. By partnering with a training provider that develops custom content based on your team’s needs, you can ensure the material they’re reviewing and the activities they’re participating in will align with their responsibilities within your organization. Outsourcing your team’s training content creation will also allow you to save significant time and overhead costs you otherwise would have needed to allocate towards learning and development. In fact, Hack The Box helped Security Risk Advisors reduce time spent creating custom labs by 90%, saving them significant time and money.

Stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends

Very few things evolve faster than the technology and security industries. As a result, many security professionals struggle to keep pace with the changes or adapt their skills to the latest industry trends. This has made it increasingly more important for the training they participate in to be an accurate reflection of the modern threat landscape. Hack The Box helps alleviate these challenges by releasing dozens of exclusive machines which are created specifically for learning how to handle active threats and emerging vulnerabilities. 

Log4shell, for example, was one of the biggest vulnerabilities of 2021 and went public on December 10. Within a few days, the Hack The Box team created a machine around this to help the cybersecurity community remain threat-ready.

Not only is this important for your teams to be able to protect your organization from the cyber criminals looking to exploit your vulnerabilities, but it will help build trust with current and future customers as well. In addition, by certifying your team’s skills and investing in continuing cybersecurity education, you’re reinforcing your commitment to maintaining top-notch security while building a reputation of credibility, expertise, and risk aversion. 

Monitor team progress to identify areas of improvement 

Once you have the labs and content you need, you’ll want to maximize your investment, and there’s no better way to do that than by tracking your team’s progress. Until recently, this had been difficult for large teams as well as teams that are geographically dispersed, but in today’s hybrid working environment, it’s easier than ever before. 

With real-time progress monitoring and analytics, you can easily identify areas where individual team members excel, what skills require more attention, and how quickly they’re able to advance through course material. Pair this with the custom content developed for your business and you’ll be leveling up your team’s skills in no time. 

Keep track of team participation and engagement with user-friendly graphs and charts.

Turn training into a team-building activity

Research shows that level of engagement during training directly correlates with how successful an employee is at work. In fact, a study conducted by TalentLMS found 83% of employees who participate in gamified training show increased motivation at work, while 61% of employees who receive non-gamified training feel less engaged and unproductive.

Teams of all sizes, skill levels, and locations have the opportunity to learn while engaging directly with their course material in fun and exciting ways. From Capture The Flag competitions to multiplayer hacking battles, learning cybersecurity has never been more fun or interactive. Whether you want your team to work together or go head-to-head, you can engage your team in competitive training exercises with a fun-fueled element. This approach is used by Toyota Motor North America, who uses custom  lab environments that allow team members of all skill levels to collaborate while participating in hands-on learning.

Using Hack The Box Dedicated Labs, up to 15 members of the Toyota team gather each Friday to participate in a “show and tell” style of learning which allows them to improve skills, add a fun element to training, and enhance employee engagement. You can visit this link to read more about how Toyota continues to use Hack The Box as an employee development and retention tool.

 

Author bio: ReAnn Molinas, B2B Marketing Specialist, Hack The Box. ReAnn has worked in marketing and content creation for more than seven years. She entered the cybersecurity industry in 2021 and has driven brand awareness through a vast portfolio of content, including blogs, emails, web pages, and more. In addition, she has developed material for major projects including product launches, keynote events, and large promotional campaigns while continuing to produce meaningful content to help grow the careers of cybersecurity professionals around the world. If you’d like to connect with her on LinkedIn, please click here.