Addressing the Skills Gap through Cyber Range Training
Addressing the Skills Gap through Cyber Range Training
Even with the best tools and technology, your cybersecurity strategy is only as strong as the people behind it—but finding the right talent is harder than ever. The cybersecurity skills gap continues to grow; companies everywhere and in every industry are feeling the impact. Discover how the skills gap currently looks, what its effects are, and why cyber range training is a potential solution for overcoming these issues.
The Growing Cybersecurity Skills Gap
Impact of Cybersecurity Skills Shortage on Organizations
The Role of Cyber Range Training in Upskilling
Enhancing Workforce Readiness Through Simulations
Supporting Certification Efforts
Addressing Talent Shortages by Attracting Diverse Candidates
Cost-Effective Continuous Learning
Reducing Recovery Time After Breaches
The Growing Cybersecurity Skills Gap
As a security leader, you're likely feeling the pressure to find skilled cybersecurity professionals, and you're not alone. The difficulty in sourcing qualified talent continues to mount for companies of all sizes, and it gets exacerbated as cyber threats grow more sophisticated. In fact, Cybersecurity Ventures reports there are now 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions.
This challenge stems from a number of factors—the ever-expanding threat landscape, the rapid pace of technological change, inefficient recruitment, a highly competitive job market, and the simple fact that there aren’t enough well-trained and experienced professionals to meet demand.
Fortinet’s 2024 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report sums up the problems. Here are two key findings that put this skills shortage into sharp focus:
70% of respondents agree that the cybersecurity skills shortage creates additional risks for their organizations.
58% of IT decision-makers say the top cause of security breaches is IT/security staff with a lack of cybersecurity skills and training.
Impact of Cybersecurity Skills Shortage on Organizations
The lack of cybersecurity talent hits organizations hard, leading to higher breach rates and longer recovery times. With fewer skilled professionals, your team struggles to detect and respond to threats quickly and efficiently, which allows attackers to gain a foothold and gives them more time to exploit vulnerabilities. This gap in expertise often translates directly into massive expenses—breaches now cost an average of $4.88 million when you factor in regulatory fines, legal fees, and lost revenue. Every empty seat is a security risk.
But the impact doesn't stop there. With an understaffed security team, employees face burnout from alert fatigue and trying to do too many things at once. This creates a vicious cycle—burnout drives existing talent away, which then further weakens your security posture. A shortfall in talent can even hinder your ability to adopt new technologies or tools securely, causing delays in adoption that give your competitors an edge. These aren't just technical challenges; they’re strategic setbacks that put your business at risk.
The Role of Cyber Range Training in Upskilling
The impact of the skills gap is clear—higher breach rates, longer recovery times, and mounting costs that leave your organization vulnerable. So, how do you close that gap and ensure your team is ready for whatever comes next? This is where cyber ranges come into play.
Cyber ranges offer immersive, hands-on virtual environments where participants experience the intensity of a live attack, all while building the skills needed to defend against it. They create a bridge between theory and practice, which helps upskill your existing staff, regardless of their existing knowledge. It enables cybersecurity professionals to go beyond classroom learning and get real experience preparing for cybersecurity challenges with simulated attacks that reflect what goes on in the real world.
Enhancing Workforce Readiness through Simulations
FBI negotiator Chris Voss once said, “when the pressure is on, you don’t rise to the occasion; you fall to your highest level of preparation.” Here’s how cyber ranges enhance workforce readiness:
Cyber range training places professionals in environments that closely replicate your IT environment’s real-world network conditions, including traffic patterns, user behavior, and infrastructure complexities.
Participants practice detecting, analyzing, and responding to simulated attacks, such as phishing attempts, ransomware infections, and lateral movement within the network. This builds a deep familiarity with threat detection tools and response protocols.
Cyber range exercises reinforce knowledge of critical incident response actions like network isolation, malware eradication, and threat containment, ensuring that these skills are second nature during a live event.
By repeatedly handling realistic attack scenarios, teams develop faster, more confident decision-making skills.
Supporting Certification Efforts
With 91% of IT decision-makers prioritizing candidates who at least hold relevant cybersecurity certifications, cyber range training offers a valuable opportunity to align practical skills with certification preparation. Training environments can simulate scenarios that are directly relevant to the competencies tested in industry-recognized credentials, which helps aspiring security professionals reinforce their theoretical knowledge with real-world applications.
For example, cyber range exercises can be tailored to align with the requirements of certifications like Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and CompTIA Security+. Hands-on practice in areas such as network defense, incident response, and risk management equips participants with the practical expertise they need to succeed in these exams.
Also, this approach not only helps candidates to prepare for certifications but also ensures that they bring real-world skills to their roles—something that certification alone might not always guarantee. Then your business can benefit from hiring professionals who are not only certified but also ready to apply their skills effectively from day one.
Addressing Talent Shortages by Attracting Diverse Candidates
There’s a strong argument that narrowly restricting recruitment efforts to those with a four-year degree compounds the skills gap by overlooking viable candidates who might excel in cybersecurity. By offering hands-on training opportunities, cyber ranges cultivate the practical skills that these candidates need to succeed in the field. They can draw in veterans, career changers from areas like risk management, and other people who have a strong aptitude for cybersecurity.
By nurturing talent from outside the usual channels, cyber ranges can help bridge the skills gap and bolster the industry’s capacity to handle emerging threats. This type of training provides these prospective, overlooked candidates with a clear path to gain experience and build confidence.
Fortinet’s report found that 83% of companies have set diversity hiring goals for the next few years, which is a promising finding. But underrepresented and overlooked candidates still need an effective training program that exposes them to real-world challenges in cybersecurity. Without this, you might just end up hiring diverse talent who lack the practical skills to succeed in high-pressure situations.
Cost-Effective Continuous Learning
Cyber range training can be easily scaled to accommodate different team sizes and skill levels. This allows you to train both new hires and experienced professionals simultaneously. The inherent flexibility of cyber ranges ensures that every team member, from junior analysts to seasoned incident responders, can develop their skills at the right pace.
Cyber ranges offer a dynamic training environment where simulation scenarios can be updated regularly to mirror the latest threat trends. Your teams can then stay current on emerging threats and adapt to new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by various threat actors and groups. Customization in these platforms allows you to adapt the training content or choose modules to fit priorities without the need to buy costly new materials or develop entirely new courses.
The virtual nature of cyber ranges allows organizations to reuse and modify exercises, simulating everything from common phishing campaigns to sophisticated zero-day attacks. Teams can practice repeatedly without the costs of setting up physical labs or external simulations.
Also, cyber ranges allow your business to conduct training on a schedule that fits in with other business priorities. This flexibility means that companies don’t have to hire consultants for specialized workshops or enroll staff in time-consuming, expensive certification programs every time new threats emerge.
Reducing Recovery Time After Breaches
Well-trained professionals can significantly reduce recovery times after breaches. With the average recovery period being 2.7 months according to Fortinet’s Skills Gap Report, cyber range training can shorten this window by preparing teams to respond faster and more effectively through:
Teaching teams to identify subtle indicators of compromise (IoCs) such as unusual traffic patterns, anomalous login attempts, or suspicious data flows. Familiarity with real-world attack behaviors means that breaches are detected faster, reducing the time between intrusion and response.
Repeated practice that helps teams learn to fine-tune their incident response playbooks, covering actions like isolating affected systems, revoking compromised credentials, and applying patches.
Limiting time wasted on misunderstandings or poorly defined roles during an actual event, leading to quicker, more unified responses.
Streamlining containment by drilling staff on specific containment strategies, such as network segmentation or device quarantine. This prepares them to take these actions faster in real-world scenarios.
Improving Collaboration Among Cybersecurity Teams
Cyber range training isn't just about developing individual skills—it’s a powerful way to foster teamwork by simulating scenarios that demand coordination across security, IT, and operational technology (OT) teams. In a real-world incident, effective collaboration between these departments is crucial for a swift and successful response.
For example, security analysts and SOC teams can practice coordinating detection and response efforts with IT and operations. A common challenge here is communication around threats in technical language that might not always align with IT priorities or understanding. Security might identify a lateral movement attempt using an advanced persistent threat (APT), but they need to translate that into actionable steps for IT, like adjusting firewall rules or isolating affected systems.
Cyber range training hones the ability of security teams to share concise, actionable intelligence with their counterparts. A training scenario might simulate a multi-stage attack that requires the SOC team to escalate a threat to IT for immediate network isolation, while simultaneously working with the operations team to ensure that critical systems continue to run. This kind of exercise forces all parties to align on priorities, understand each other’s constraints, and develop a common incident response language.
Ensuring Board Accountability
Board-level accountability for cybersecurity is on the rise, with 51% of organizations reporting that board members face penalties following a breach (usually a fine), according to the report. This increased pressure means that board members need a deeper understanding of the cyber risks facing their organization.
Cyber range training offers a unique way to achieve this. By participating in simulated cyber attack scenarios and next-generation tabletop exercises, board members gain a firsthand perspective on how these incidents unfold and the impact they can have on business operations. This training heightens their awareness of evolving threats and helps board members make more informed decisions and integrate cybersecurity into your company’s overall strategy.
Outsmart the Hackers: Why Realistic Training Is Your Best Investment
The cybersecurity talent shortage is real, and it’s costing organizations both time and money. Addressing the skills gap is not just about filling positions; it's about equipping people to handle real threats effectively when they arise.
Cyber ranges provide a training method that places people in realistic, simulated environments where they practice defending against cyber attacks that look and feel like the real thing. By bridging the gap between theory and practice, cyber ranges ensure your staff aren't just prepared on paper—they’re ready when it counts. Cyber range training can upskill your current team quickly, helping you build internal capabilities without waiting for the perfect hire.
Cloud Range provides a leading cyber range-as-a-service platform for practicing live-fire simulated cyber attack exercises. You can choose team-based or individual exercises and select from a library of many modern and realistic scenarios, and you can customize and configure simulations tailored to fit your network and requirements. You can also have your own fully customized, private cyber range with Range365.
