More than 350 attack scenarios: NSTU-NETI has launched its own cyberpolygon

The educational cyber polygon was developed in order to form professional competencies among IT specialists such as monitoring center analysts, information security incident response specialists, and security assessment specialists. The educational cyberpolygon is built in the basic version as a model of a typical corporate infrastructure with closed and demilitarized network segments with appropriate services. During the construction, domestic developments in the field of IT technologies were used. The cyberpolygon infrastructure includes modules on methods and vectors of attacks on external and internal infrastructure, as well as methods of protection against cyber threats. The opening ceremony was attended by Sergey Tsukar, Minister of Digital Development and Communications of the Novosibirsk Region, Anatoly Bataev, Rector of NSTU-NETI, Andrey Meshkin, Director of Information Security Systems LLC, teachers and students of the university. According to Anatoly Bataev, cybersecurity has long entered the lives of companies and ordinary people, becoming an integral part of it. Over the past few years, the number of cyber attacks has increased many times, and with it the demand for qualified specialists who are able to reflect them competently and in real time. The format of the cyberpolygon and conducting cyber studies with its help will both improve the training of specialists in the field of detecting and countering attacks, and test their skills as close as possible to real conditions, modeling real information infrastructures of organizations and allowing attacks to be carried out without harm to original systems. "The opening of the cyberpolygon is an important event in the history of information security. The educational cluster will allow us to train highly qualified specialists, experts in their field in this field. We note hundreds of thousands of attacks on the infrastructure of commercial organizations and state-owned corporations every year, so the role of qualified specialists is extremely important today. The opening of the cyberpolygon is a timely event and meets the challenges that exist in the government of the Novosibirsk region and in the country as a whole. Last year, a special cybersecurity monitoring department was established on the basis of the information security center of the government of the Novosibirsk Region, and we are ready to employ new specialists there. Now the information technology industry is certainly experiencing a shortage of personnel, which is extremely acute due to the increasing cyber threats," commented Sergey Tsukar, Minister of Digital Development and Communications of the Novosibirsk Region. He thanked the university management and the companies that joined the project. During the event, the guests were told about the structure, features and possibilities of solving both educational and applied tasks through this project. Students and postgraduates of the Department of Information Security showed a demonstration case on working out an information security incident at a cyberpolygon. As noted by Andrey Meshkin, Director of Information Security Systems LLC, the opening of the current cyberpolygon is a serious step towards a new approach in education, because having a good material base will give students the opportunity to work on current versions of software, participate in projects together with specialists with real experience in this industry. This will allow you to quickly and effectively train the personnel that are needed today in the field of information security. "We are jointly working on new scenarios and opportunities to expand the functionality of the cyberpolygon. At the moment, more than 350 scenarios of attacks on the infrastructure have already been implemented. The modular infrastructure adapts to any tasks of specialists," added Ivan Nikroshkin, Head of the cyberpolygon development department at the Information Security Engineering Center of NSTU-NETI.