Kaspersky offers cybersecurity training in video game form

Security vendor Kaspersky has developed an interactive cybersecurity training offering aimed at IT managers and corporate managers, and made it available through its partners.

Named Kaspersky Interactive Protection Simulation (KIPS), the product is a video game simulating how a company should respond to various cyber security threats while also balancing a budget and managing time efficiently.

Kaspersky said the game’s scenarios are based on real-life events and was developed in consultation with its channel partners and other cybersecurity professionals. The scenarios include a corporation, a bank, an oil and gas company, a government agency, a utility provider (power or water) and a transportation provider.

KIPS pits two teams of four to six people against each other to battle a number of security threats that would impact an organisation’s operations. In each round, teams are given a number cards with a specific action with a corresponding financial and time cost. New cards are generated after each round depending on the actions made in the previous rounds.

To simulate the pressure of making quick decisions, each round is shorter than the last. The team that manages to keep the most revenue wins.

KIPS is available as a live training exercise for smaller groups with KIPS Live, while bigger groups like multinational organisations or a public activity would be suited to use KIPS Online.

Kaspersky ANZ general manager Margrith Appleby said KIPS’ goal is to help managers better collaborate and cooperate in the event of a cybersecurity breach and learn how to save business expenses spent on incident recovery costs.

“One of the biggest security challenges we see is different perspectives of cybersecurity and the potential impacts and relevance based on differing senior management roles, their responsibilities and individual accountability in a business,” Appleby said.

“This can result in less than adequate security decisions which in turn, impacts the level of business performance and company revenues.”