British Army picks Immersive Labs for cyber training

The British Army has selected Immersive Labs, a supplier of services that “measure and optimise” human cyber capabilities to provide security training and skills development across the country’s military services.

Immersive’s platform will be made available across the Army’s 100,000-strong workforce, including regular, reserve and civilian staff, beginning with staff officers, and digital technical specialists, providing a “continuous cycle of human cyber capability development”.

The platform provides online labs and content “experiences” delivered through the user’s browser, which collectively serve to improve security knowledge and skills and reinforce appropriate judgement.

The courses proceed according to an individual’s pace, ability and particular needs, beginning with the fundamentals, such as password hygiene and spotting phishing emails, through to aspects such as secure web app development and even incident response.

“This is an exciting opportunity for the British Army to raise the level of our people’s cyber skills across the board,” said the Army’s head of cyber and security, Kristina Evans.

“Not only does it allow those with a grounding in technical capabilities to improve, but it also allows us to uncover a whole new class of cyber talent.

“The threats we face change day by day and can come from any vector – for this reason, cyber security should not just be limited to backroom technical teams. The modern operating environment, at home and overseas, requires strength in-depth, with people across the Army providing a defensive cyber capability, which the work with Immersive Labs fully supports.”

Additionally, the Army will lean on Immersive’s platform to map a real-time view of its personnels’ abilities against frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK, so that it can identify where capabilities need to be shored up and conduct targeted interventions.

Given the armed forces’ remit to ensure the military remains protected in a dynamic threat environment, the Army hopes this continuous development will not only prevent skills decay over time, but provide greater coverage of the threat landscape, and tap previously unexplored wells of latent cyber talent and fast-track it to expert roles.

James Hadley, CEO of Immersive Labs, said: “With the nature of modern warfare changing on a daily basis, the British Army needs to improve the cyber abilities of their personnel, with pace and scale. By joining forces with the British Army, our platform is playing a vital role in helping achieve this, pinpointing areas for improvement and enhancing the nation’s cyber defence capabilities as a whole.”