World Wide Technology Inaugurates New Cyber Range with First Capture the Flag Event for Its Financial Institution Customers
More than 35 cybersecurity practitioners battled in WWT's newly built Cyber Range, a $1.5M add-on to the WWT Advanced Technology Center.
World Wide Technology (WWT) held its first Capture the Flag (CTF) event for its US financial services customers, July 22. Three more CTF events will follow this year: one for EMEA customers, another for APAC customers, and a "World Wide Final" to be held in November. This series of events will be repeated annually.
CTF events bring together WWT's experts, OEM partners and customers to train in a fun and competitive way, going head-to-head in solving practical, simulated cyber challenges.
The first CTF event was a heated cyber battle, attended by five global financial institutions with over 35 security practitioners at cyberwar. Over the course of eight hours, nine small teams battled for points by attacking one another and defending against complex attacks, not too foreign from what these banks are up against in real life.
The event was a very fun and enriching way for these cybersecurity lovers to flex their cyber muscles and explore WWT's newly built Cyber Range.
The Cyber Range is the brainchild of Chris Konrad, senior director of security for WWT Global Accounts, and Matt Berry, managing advisor of cybersecurity for WWT Global Accounts. Konrad had the idea for the Cyber Range while Berry architected the idea into a reality.
Matt Berry, Managing Advisor, Cybersecurity, Global Accounts, WWT
The Cyber Range is a complex and controlled cybersecurity environment that allows companies to practice responding to specific real-world scenarios with force-on-force gameplay. Companies can also use it to evaluate advanced technologies and integrate security controls to support an effective cyber defense strategy.
The Cyber Range is built on Dell hardware, running VMware's Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC) architecture, with more than nine other OEMs represented. The innovative environment is a product of a $1.5M investment, a ton of top executive encouragement and well over 2,500 hours of human effort.
WWT envisions CTF events to be an ongoing cybersport that provides security teams with a fun way to tackle challenging cyberattack scenarios and acquire the vigorous training needed to stay competitive.
