News Brief #7: Involving stakeholders in the development of training material for the FORESIGHT Platform

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In order to ensure that the FORESIGHT Platform will fit the needs and requirements of its targeted end users and provide realistic cybersecurity training and simulation material, the consortium conducted interviews with relevant stakeholders. The aim was to define how cybersecurity training for employees in critical sectors should ideally be approached and what requirements need to be met in order to achieve successful training.

Participants

The interviews targeted three stakeholder groups involved in cybersecurity training:

Academia
Cybersecurity professionals
Industry professionals (e.g., software developers)

Methodology

In order to gather the useful information from stakeholders, the consortium conducted semi-structured interviews. This type of qualitative interview aims to collect data based on intuitive insights and interaction by not limiting the answers by determining a pre-given structure for them. By collecting more open-ended data, semi-structured interviews can be used to gather more detailed information than through, for example, closed-ended questions.

Interview structure

The interviews followed the following structure in order to make sure all necessary information is being collected:

Background: Participants were asked about their background and previous involvement in the area of cybersecurity and cyber-range training.
Training methods in cybersecurity courses: This section aimed to gather information on current training methods in cybersecurity.
Goals and effectiveness of cybersecurity training: Here, participants were asked about why specific training methods have been chosen.
Cyber–range training – preparation and delivery: Participants were asked to provide insights into their experiences with cyber-range training and benefits of this training type.
Cyber-range training – trainee performance, feedback and evaluation: This section focused on the assessment of trainees during cyber-range training sessions.
Cyber-range training – training and course evaluation: Interview participants were asked about how they perceive feedback from trainees, what methods are used for feedback collection and what course elements feedback would be most needed on.

Outcomes

Through the stakeholder interviews, the consortium was able to gather valuable insights into current training methods in the cybersecurity sector from a variety of perspectives. These outcomes are used as a reference for the development of training materials for the FORESIGHT platforms and will ensure that the training materials will be useful to their final end users. Thereby, the consortium ensures a higher efficiency of cybersecurity training as well as increased preparedness of companies for cyber-attacks.