This article was originally published on the RangeForce Blog.

RangeForce Launches Defense Readiness Index™, the World’s First Comprehensive Score Enabling Companies to Easily Gauge, Assess, and Bolster Their Cybersecurity Capabilities.

RangeForce announces the launch of the Defense Readiness Index (DRI)™. Integrated into RangeForce’s Threat Centric platform – and with advanced AI underpinnings – the DRI™ is a pioneering score that gauges an organization’s readiness to effectively respond to the cyberattacks it is likely to face. 

The DRI™ empowers organizations to pinpoint specific weaknesses in their team’s cyber capabilities, enabling companies to quickly assess any skills gaps and implement strategic recommendations to plug those gaps. It also informs senior management with objective metrics, providing visibility into the strength of their cybersecurity teams. And the DRI™ maps directly to both the MITRE ATT&CK® and D3FEND™ frameworks, so organizations can accurately measure team sophistication when responding to real-world threats.

Additionally, the DRI™ draws upon collaborative work with the Department of Defense and NATO. “NATO runs the largest international cybersecurity exercises in the world, and defends against nation-state level attacks,” said Taavi Must, co-founder and CEO, RangeForce.

“But we found – when it came to defense – even their teams needed to practice using real tools, in real-time, under stressful conditions. So we developed customized training to provide visibility into skills gaps and to identify areas for improvement. Then we focused on scaling our platform, extending the same benefits to everyone with the launch of RangeForce. And with the launch of our enhanced Threat Centric platform, we’re taking the next major leap forward.”

Today, many companies remain unaware of their teams’ true readiness to defend against attacks. According to Gartner, by 2025, lack of talent or human failure will be responsible for over half of significant cyber incidents. And increasingly, threat actors see humans as the most vulnerable point of exploitation. RangeForce’s DRI™ was created to provide organizations with data-driven metrics so managers can validate the technical and soft skills of their teams and to see how well they perform under pressure against real-world attacks. 

How RangeForce’s DRI™ works

The DRI™ ranks organizations on a scale of one to five, each with its own set of controls and practices to provide visibility into where cyber-defense teams stand in terms of competency against cyberattacks. It also provides insight into a team’s mix of demonstrated skills, their capabilities to detect and disrupt threats, their ability to collaborate on investigations, where skill gaps exist, the associated costs, and more. 

The DRI™ provides a roadmap so companies can focus on the skills needed to move up to the next level, or to remain at the same level as the threat landscape evolves over time. Additionally, it enhances assessment and reporting mechanisms – allowing organizations to see the progress their teams are making – and it provides essential data to inform senior management about the objective strength of their security teams.

“I’m excited to see a company like RangeForce use D3FEND to help cyber defenders better understand how their products can help them fight adversaries,” said Peter Kaloroumakis, D3FEND Lead and Principal Cybersecurity Engineer at MITRE Corporation. “Our D3FEND community continues to grow, and through active community participation, D3FEND will become an even more effective and robust resource for cyber defenders.”

Augmenting RangeForce’s (AR)² Readiness Program

With the addition of the DRI™ into RangeForce’s wider (AR)² Readiness Program (Assess, Address, Review, and Repeat), RangeForce ensures it can deliver measurable improvements in defense readiness within just 30 days. 

RangeForce now has the most robust training methodology on the market, which:

• Helps organizations identify and address skill gaps within their cybersecurity teams.
• Offers customers an integrated learning experience.
• Ensures teams have the skills and knowledge necessary to protect against evolving cyber threats.
• Empowers organizations to build stronger, more resilient cybersecurity defenses by focusing on team skills and expertise. 

See how the Defense Readiness Index™ can improve your team’s defensive posture.