The Infosec Skills cyber range labs come equipped with clear learning objectives, real-time feedback based on learner inputs and in-depth video walkthroughs to help teams upskill and reskill with one click.
When a learner enters into a new lab, they are presented with the following introduction, providing an overview of the content, and a reminder to have enough time to complete the lab in one sitting.
When ready to proceed, hit “Start Lab” and a learners individual virtual environment will be created and loaded. This usually takes a few seconds, but if you happen to catch us at a busy time, we will create a new environment from scratch just for you, it just might take a few minutes!
Once the lab is loaded, you’ll be presented with the learner interface. The current step’s lesson and objectives are outlined in the left column, while your virtual environment is presented on the right.
Each tab across the top represents a different virtual machine inside this range - though there may be others you can’t see or don’t have access to (yet!).
If you need a little more room to stretch your virtual legs, you can pop out a remote machine into it’s own window using the three-dot menu on a tab. If you want to rejoin the main window, you can do that from the popped-out window, or from the main screen too.
As you complete actions in the lab, you’ll see feedback you are ready to proceed. A green message will appear in the lower left of your desktop, and the circle in the upper left of the step will become a checkmark to let you know it is time to move on!
If at any time you need a little help, or if your fingers are a bit tired, you can click on any commands that look like this:
to copy that command to the clipboard of your remote machine. Every machine, application, and keyboard might have a slightly different set of “paste” keys, so if you are having any trouble, we recommend using the right-click menu to select “paste”
Lastly, many labs and ranges require you to complete tasks in order (it’s hard to secure an app in step 5 if we didn’t start it in step 3) but you might want to read ahead to see what’s coming up in a lab. Feel free! We won’t watch for task completion if you aren’t on the active step, and if you are far enough ahead, hitting “back” will jump you back to your next task.
And if you got a little creative -or a feline hacking partner took over your keyboard for a few minutes- you might find your environment borked. No worries! If you exit and re-enter a lab, you’ll be asked if you want to pick up where you left off, or if you want us to dump your current work and set up a new, clean range for you.
You’ll have to start back at step 1, but you’ll still be able to complete the exercise this time around.