Palo Alto prepares to expand scope of Cyber Range

Palo Alto Networks is preparing to launch the next generation of its Cyber Range training scheme in the first half of calendar 2019.

The company earlier this year launched its fourth Cyber Range: The Sydney-based facility is Palo Alto’s first in Asia-Pacific.

Since the launch earlier this year, the security company has been hitting capacity for the two regular sessions it runs every month, according to Philip Dimitriu, director of systems engineering, ANZ, at Palo Alto Networks.

The facility allows security pros to tackle exercises using live malware in an isolated environment, working through a range scenarios and the impact of security different configurations.

The space can hold a dozen people, and exercises typically involve six teams of two, but can be tailored for teams of three or four. The infrastructure is carefully isolated in a caged-out section of the company’s local data centre

The instructors are drawn from Palo Alto’s systems engineering organisation.

Palo Alto also offers closed out-of-schedule sessions, Dimitriu said — the company has run two in Sydney so far.

“It’s done not necessarily because it’s been sensitive-type organisations, though that is a use case, but more ‘We want to get our whole team across this and talk about stuff that we wouldn’t necessarily want to share with others externally,’” he said.

The focus so far has been on the next-generation firewalls and malware. 

The next generation will looking at “other kinds of template-ised type approaches – so not just focusing on the next-gen firewall — but also then adding in, for example, a known adversary tactic that gets used, and then leveraging preventative techniques to counter that.”

“We’re also looking to develop specific critical infrastructure type Cyber Range scenarios,” he added. “So again threats, scenarios, configs, preventative mechanisms that are pertinent to critical infrastructure type organisations.”