Taavi Must, the founder and CEO at RangeForce believes that in the cybersecurity field, the main problem lies in not being able to attract, train, and retain the talent necessary to protect the enterprise. "We have plenty of technology but the capability to make them effective at using that technology is nascent," he says. "It's ludicrous to think we can become effective cyber defenders without regularly practicing and testing the ability of a security team to work together under a high-stress environment."
In 2008, just a year after large-scale, state-sponsored cyberattacks on Estonia, NATO set up its Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia's capital, Tallinn, to strengthen its capabilities and improve cooperation and information-sharing among its members and partners.
Among the contractors who helped build a military-class cyber range for NATO's cyber exercises, were IT-infrastructure and security specialists Jaanus Kink, Margus Ernits, and Taavi Must. A few years later, they decided to found a startup based on the experiences they had gained.
"We saw how useful cyber exercises are for defense teams. Once we realized that this kind of learning experience could help cyber teams around the world, we started to build RangeForce – a platform for hands-on training of cyber defenders and running cyber exercises at scale," RangeForce CEO Must tells ZDNet.
RangeForce provides cybersecurity training for companies of varying sizes, combining cloud-based, hands-on training modules and cyber-siege challenges and exercises.
The company provides modules across three main areas, aimed at improving security, application, and DevOps teams. In each area, there are different learning paths, and it tracks how the most popular modules are used.
In recent years, RangeForce has moved its headquarters to Washington DC and now employs 75 people worldwide, with 35 of them in Estonia. In July, it announced a $16m series A round led by Energy Impact Partners, with Cisco Investments among the investors.
See the full post on ZDNet.