RangeForce Ushers in New Era of Hands-on Cybersecurity Training with Workforce-Ready Certificate Program

MANASSAS, Va., Nov. 19, 2020 -- RangeForce is today introducing a hands-on, workforce-ready certificate program, the first blue team skills certificate for the cybersecurity market. 

The new certificate is designed to provide evidence that cybersecurity professionals have mastered critical detection and response capabilities and validate for employers that individuals have the practical knowledge and skills needed to do the work required versus theory-based certifications. The RangeForce Workforce-Ready Certificate program is rolling out globally this week. Get started here. 

While traditional certifications lack proof of practical, hands-on experience and skills, the new RangeForce certificate recognizes learners as experts for having completed hands-on training modules and challenges mapped to learning paths for their roles, such as Security Analyst Level One and OWASP^® Top 10 Vulnerability Defense Expert. RangeForce plans to release additional role-based certificates in the coming months, including security analyst level two, threat hunter, penetration tester, and more. Additionally, the program will include micro-certificates for skills developed in specific tools or technologies, such as Microsoft, Kubernetes, Docker, Yara, or code injection defense.

The RangeForce certificate program utilizes digital credentials held by Credly.com to verify and share knowledge, skills, and abilities. 

Larry Whiteside Jr. is CTO & CSO of CyberClan, a global MSSP, Co-Founder & President of International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP), and a longtime CISO across multiple industries.

According to Whiteside, “Traditional certifications and vendor certificates can be great. But RangeForce’s approach to certificates is different. It seeks to prove skills and abilities through problem-solving. This is accomplished with real-world simulations, habit-building exercises, and adaptive feedback loops. In this way, security pros gain role-based learning that helps them create detailed career paths in critical areas of expertise like cloud security, then participate in blue team exercises with skills scoring and plans for continuous learning.

“These are the hallmarks of hands-on training today’s cyber professionals need,” Whiteside continued. “Hands-on certification will be a must-have for any employer that wants to recognize and build talent pipelines to manage cyber risk to their business environments.”

Certification Types & Levels

Security, IT, and DevOps professionals can learn new skills, reskill or upskill, earning RangeForce certificates covering two main areas:

• RangeForce Role-based Learning Path Certificates are awarded for completion of RangeForce’s unique tailored, adaptive learning paths.These include security analyst level 1 and 2, or advanced certificates in threat hunting or malware reverse engineering. Certificates are designed to show professionals can do the work required to perform their jobs. To pass final exams, learners must prove themselves in capstone exercises, providing further evidence of suitability for SOC team and cross-team membership.
• Micro-certificates are specialty accreditation badges, awarded for completion of tool or skills training (Splunk, YARA, Suricata, Docker, Password Security, etc.).This helps recognize talent and special skills and keeps learners engaged in continuous learning and improvement.

More than a simple piece of paper, the Credly digital certificates link hiring managers to details on what cybersecurity professionals have learned and can do on day one, providing details on learning paths and achievements in a real-world environment. 

“For the first time, employers can actually see how a potential new hire security analyst, for example, was able to use advanced filtering in Splunk to surface an IOC,  analyze the URL and header of a suspicious email, or investigate a ‘pass-the-hash attack’ on Windows-based systems,” said RangeForce President Gordon Lawson. “This type of role-based learning path and certificate program will help hiring managers select candidates who can add value on day one, and help security leaders build career paths for their cyber teams to improve readiness and increase retention.”

Read more about the RangeForce’s hands-on certificate program here. 

Join the RangeForce Community and try our hands-on, simulation-based cybersecurity training for free.

About RangeForce

RangeForce makes creating highly skilled cybersecurity defenders simple, flexible, and fast for all enterprises. Powered by the industry’s first SaaS-based, integrated cybersecurity simulation and virtual cyber range, we help customers operationalize a security training program in hours, saving up to 65% over traditional training and up to $1M annually on hosted cyber ranges. RangeForce is revolutionizing cybersecurity training with its adaptive learning to rapidly train and cross-train DevOps, IT, and security professionals, and security training orchestration integrating best-of-breed solutions from a growing ecosystem of RangeForce partners. Train with us to build cyber resilience!