Hacker School: Israeli Cyber Gym Hopes To Train Next Generation Of White Hat Hackers

To combat the nearly 10,000 cyberattacks it receives every hour, the Israel Electric Corporation has opened a new “Cyber Gym” to train computer security professionals to better defend against malicious hackers.

The trainees tend to be IT employees from energy and infrastructure companies, and instructors are selected from the Israeli army, security services and universities. According to phys.org, the instructors remain anonymous and keep their faces hidden from cameras.

The program is designed to put as much pressure on the trainees as possible. Instructors sit in an “attack room” and launch simulated attacks against a computer system in the “defense room.” Via a wall of code streaming down wall-mounted screens, the instructors can monitor the hacking in real time.

“Each attack is different, so there’s no way for the defense teams to cheat,” an instructor known as “A” told phys.org. “There’s no set scenario or scripted attack, they’re performed in a different way, live, by the hackers next door.”

To simulate real-world consequences of failing to defend against a cyberattack, the system at the Cyber Gym is designed to completely shut down if the malicious hackers succeed.

The Cyber Gym is initially training employees from Israeli companies, but it hopes to expand to firms in the U.S., Europe and Asia.