The Military Guide To Assessing Cybersecurity Preparedness

Apr 5, 2021 | Content, News

Cybersecurity professionals in the business world must keep their skills sharp in order to protect their organizations. But in the military, the stakes are much, much higher. For these cyber operators, being prepared – or lacking preparedness – can impact national security, physical safety, and even make the difference between life and death for troops in the field.

Military leaders must be able to quickly and easily assess whether their operators are mission ready. Do they have the skills needed to do the job, and will they be able to call on those skills in a crisis?

Standardized training

Aries Security did an assessment for the Pentagon in 2015 of over 500 troops across all Uniformed Military Services and found significant disparities in skills and training. The United States military uses several frameworks to determine mission readiness and qualification. Job Qualification Record (JQR), Army gunnery tables, Master Scenario Events List (MSEL), and NICE are just a few of these. The advantage of these frameworks is that each provides a standardization of requirements. But they can also pose challenges when it comes to assessing cybersecurity skills, as some training tools are unequipped to address these specific needs.

The Aries Security cyber range makes it possible to train operators, identify and remediate skill gaps, and document that operators are qualified for their job roles. Armed with our years of cybersecurity knowledge and the input from the DoD and Armed Forces, we have developed exercises for nearly every line item in the JQRs for critical roles for use by individual units to assess cybersecurity readiness.

Content and reporting

Much of Aries’ custom-built cyber range content is based on military job frameworks and years of expert hacking experience. The Aries range maps to specific KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities), and we are able to map these to vetted content. In addition, we are able to create training to combat specific adversary TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures. And we are capable of building classified mission training.

The content coordinator can review detailed reporting metrics to qualify hundreds of trainees in the time that it would take to manually qualify just a few. Using the Cyber PT™ card, combined with JQR certificates (cross walk), an operator can document their validated and completed training. This will quantify their readiness for a job role and ability to perform their duties.

Reps and sets

When it’s go time, units have to be prepared and able to act as one. Education, training and certificates provide a foundation, but keyboard time is critical for learning. Sets and reps build muscle memory. TTPs make it real. Training is supposed to be difficult. Aries Security’s cyber range makes training setup easy, scalable and reusable.

If you’re ready to learn more, it’s time to reach out to our expert staff. We have years of experience advising military clients, and we’re ready to take your cybersecurity training to the next level. Contact us today.

Contact Us Today, Defend Better Tomorrow.

Aries Security wants to help you prepare for tomorrow’s cyber threats. Our experienced and knowledgeable staff is here to guide you through the process of setting up your event, building your content or installing your range. Contact us today.

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