The growing threat landscape has amplified a need for talent and tools to better understand, interoperate, and thwart cyber threats. Through the RH-ISAC’s trusted partnerships with Associate members, retail and hospitality cybersecurity practitioners are able to gain knowledge and build skills in myriad manner.
One such partnership is with Root9B (R9B), a company that ‘understands the cognitive aspects of cybersecurity operations’ and has developed a series of hands-on technical training courses with curriculum that equips students with the skills required to defeat the adversary. Through this partnership, one senior SOC analyst on Best Buy’s Global Threat Detection & Response team was able to take the Cyber Threat Intelligence Analysis course. In the below, she reflects on the real-world application, content flexibility and merits of this course.
“Cyber Threat Intelligence in the corporate space is growing legs as a subfield of Cybersecurity. But it’s still understood and treated as synonymous with information. Admittedly, it took me some time to recognize the gravity of this obstacle in our environment and probably others. Because Intelligence (the kind that’s actually useful) is a living system, not a downstream data flow! The desire or the appetite for quality, relevant, and timely insights in this field is spot on. However, outside the natural habitat (military or other government operations), platitudes on the power of intel persist, absent the naturally occurring support elements critical to sustain the lifecycle. In short, without stewardship that promotes reciprocity with internal clientele, Intel will never meet expectations for elucidative capabilities, short of channeling the supernatural! Just kidding. That this is a work in progress isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s difficult for even a group of seasoned analysts to recognize the absence of certain components of the lifecycle – or worse components that exist, but just don’t work very well.
That’s where education comes in. Specifically, through exploring how intelligence integrates into various components of Infosec (and other parts of the business such as Risk Management and Data Science) the course provided an array of critical links that greatly accelerate concept to reality ETL. When it comes to establishing and steering a CTI program toward maturity, there needs to be a blueprint for a system, with just the right balance between a idea and process, to avoid the pitfalls of instruction leaning too heavily either way. Too much granularity in the blueprint causes confusion (because every ecosystem is different). Too much abstract pontification (more often the case) and critical gaps form, preventing the formulation of tradecraft and procedures that make up the lifecycle.”
R9B is offering a 15% discount to RH-ISAC Core members on their commercial training classes that are operationally focused and designed to make students understand how to think and act like an adversary.
Courses include:
- Adversary Tactics & Techniques
- Cyber Threat Intelligence Analysis
- Hunt Certification Courses in Windows, Linux and Network
- Python for Cyber Operations
- Powershell Foundations
- Mobile Network Vulnerability and Analysis
- Industrial Control Systems.
Interested in learning more about these courses? View their course catalog that includes descriptions, dates and locations of their programs. Ready to sign up? Email [email protected] who will put you in touch with their team. To learn more about R9B visit: https://www.root9b.com/
