INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Enterprise Security
POWERED BY
Help AG launches ‘Hackademy’ to
foster ethical hacking skills
/////////////////////////////
A
s the volume of cyberattacks has
escalated exponentially, spending
on cybersecurity grew 8% in 2018.
Help AG, a leading cybersecurity services,
consultancy and solutions provider in the
Middle East, believes this is a positive and
necessary development but warns that simply
increasing security investment is not enough
to mitigate new and sophisticated threats. To
arm Middle East cybersecurity professionals
with the skills and knowledge they need,
the company has launched the Help AG
Hackademy. This offensive ethical hacking
hands-on training programme is conducted
by qualified L33T hackers and empowers
attendees to perform attack simulations
that uncover security vulnerabilities in their
organisations’ IT environments.
Mukhammad Khalilov, Manager Security
Analysis at Help AG who heads the
programme, said: “The best cybersecurity
investments are guided by a keen
understanding of the most critical security
issues within the organisation as these are
the areas attackers are likely to exploit.
“Our hands-on training takes a deep dive
into the many techniques and tools that
attackers actually use in the real world. It
therefore encourages attendees to ‘think
like hackers’ and identify the areas that their
organisations must first address to harden
their security defences.”
At its launch, the programme comprises
of five courses that cover several aspects
of ethical hacking including internal and
external penetration testing, assessment
of web applications, simulating social
engineering attacks and executing advanced
hacking techniques such as buffer overflows
and reverse engineering. The duration of
each of these courses is either three or five
days, at the end of which attendees are
presented with a certificate of attendance,
recognising their successful completion of
the training module.
Held at Help AG’s regional headquarters
in Dubai, each of the five courses will be
conducted by qualified L33T hackers and
will feature classroom style training with an
emphasis on hands-on practice sessions.
These training sessions are specifically
designed for both network and security
teams and will be highly relevant to technical
experts, software developers, SOC team
members, network administrators, system
administrators, web managers, auditors, and
security professionals in general.
The decision to launch the Hackademy
follows the success of Help AG’s own
penetration testing team which in the last
year alone uncovered over 70 zero-day
vulnerabilities in IT solutions and software
from several industry-leading vendors.
Stephan Berner, CEO at Help AG, said:
“We have seen how these efforts have
contributed significantly to helping our
clients strengthen their defences.
“With the Hackademy programme, we’re
now giving our customers an opportunity
to empower their internal IT teams with the
same skills and technical know-how that we
have gained through years of commitment
to cybersecurity.
Stephan Berner, CEO at Help AG
www.intelligentcio.com
“This will enable them to regularly conduct
simulated hacking exercises by themselves
which will play a key role in mitigating risks
they face from the constantly evolving
threat landscape.” n
INTELLIGENTCIO
69