Cybersecurity market a potential boon for simulation companies.

• Author: Jean, Grace V.
• Position: TRAINING & SIMULATION

Governments and armed forces worldwide last year spent more than $8 billion in the cyberwarfare market to beef up networks and increase security. Analysts believe that an expected growth in information security spending also could lead to new opportunities for businesses that can help train cyberwarriors.

Visiongain, a market research firm based in London, is forecasting significant sales growth in the global cyberwarfare market in the coming years. "We believe the cyber-security boom offers a lucrative range of business opportunities for defense companies and software developers," a company spokesman said in promotional materials for a report titled, "Cyberwarfare Market 2010-2020."

That range not only spans information technology hardware and security software but also includes training and education for the cyberwarrior and layman alike.

"There are opportunities for those that have online training or in-class training to grow a market," said Robert Rodriguez, chairman and founder of the San Francisco-based Security Innovation Network, an organization that aims to advance IT security.

As governments nurture their cybersecurity work forces, some leading companies and organizations also are trying to educate their own workers so that they are savvier about conducting day-to-day business in the Internet-connected world. They are quickly learning that tried-and-true teaching methods are becoming obsolete in the digital realm.

"Traditional classroom training may not any longer be the most effective," said Diane Miller, operations director of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s cybersecurity group.

Training is evolving from lecture delivery to a computer-based process that is engaging, visually appealing and contains embedded tools and quizzes that progressively move students from the basics to more advanced levels.

"The curse of much computer-based training is that some scenarios are really profoundly uninteresting and you walk away bored, no smarter, possibly a little bit dumber, than when you sat down," said Jared Freeman, chief research officer at Aptima Inc., a Woburn, Mass.-based company that specializes in adaptive training tools. "The trick is to present scenarios that challenge folks at just the right level and then to push them to the kind of expertise you want them to attain."

The company is developing a 3-D game with an "accelerated learning architecture" to quickly train frontline managers in identifying potential insider cyberthreats.

"The insider threat is one of the biggest issues we have," said Rodriguez.

Though the government and the Defense Department remain focused on thwarting cyberattacks from outside entities, one of the growing areas of concern is an enemy that is already inside the nation's networks...