The likelihood of being hit by a data security breach makes businesses’ ability to respond to an attack as important as their ability to defend against it, say APMG International and Logical Operations. Enterprises must equip themselves with the correct skills to react to, and prevent, cyber attacks if they are to limit their damaging effects.
Richard Pharro, CEO of APMG, said: “The unfortunate reality of the situation we find ourselves in is that the majority of organisations will be breached at some time in their lifetimes. The latest BIS Information Security Breaches Survey suggests that nine out of ten large organisations in the UK experienced a security breach last year, and those businesses, had their systems breached an average of 14 times. It’s clear that it is no longer a case of if a business will get breached, but when. After all, businesses need to be successful 100 per cent of the time, but a cyber criminal only needs to be successful once.
“The overall impact of a malicious breach on a business will be determined by how quickly the targeted organisation can respond, assess the situation and take back control of its systems. Unless you’re monitoring your network constantly, and are in a position to act within minutes, you’ll have lost essential information to a competitor or face a serious PR crisis. It’s therefore critical that IT teams possess the knowledge and skills to respond quickly and appropriately to breaches as and when they happen,” Pharro continued.
To educate businesses about how to respond in the face of attack, cyber security instructor-led training provider Logical Operations has developed CyberSec First Responder: Threat Detection and Response (CFR). The courseware, which has recently achieved GCHQ Certified Training (GCT) certification, uses a hands-on environment to enable students to develop the skills and knowledge needed to minimise the impact of breaches when they occur.
Delivered in an instructor-led setting over a five-day period, CyberSec First Responder: Threat Detection and Response is designed for information assurance professionals who perform job functions related to the development, operation, management, and enforcement of security capabilities for systems and networks. The course prepares security professionals to become the first line of response against cyber-attacks by teaching students to analyse threats, design secure computing and network environments, proactively defend networks, and respond to and investigate cybersecurity incidents.
Bill Rosenthal, CEO at Logical Operations, commented: “The stakes are incredibly high when it comes to data security and cyber security training is critical to helping businesses make sense of the incredibly fast-paced threat landscape. It is difficult to know, however, which training providers and schemes are fit-for-purpose, and which ones could be improved upon. That is precisely why GCT was established, and in choosing a GCT-certified course and training provider, businesses can be sure that the knowledge they are being provided with is relevant and of a professional standard. Achieving GCT-certification for our CFR courseware will make it easier for other training providers to become GCT-certified themselves, which will, in turn, make high quality training more accessible for end users.”
