IBM Canada makes uOttawa the home of its first university-based cybersecurity training hub for governments and businesses
by CM staff
The industry partnership will offer cybersecurity response training through simulated cyberattack and cyber threat simulations.
Photo: IBM.
OTTAWA — The University of Ottawa and IBM Canada announced the official opening of the new uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range. IBM’s first Cyber Range partnership on a Canadian university campus offers highly realistic cyber response training exercises to help businesses and government organizations across the country better prepare for cyber threats, including how to plan, respond, manage, contain, and remediate cyberattacks.
The Cyber Range training will also be integrated into undergraduate and graduate courses, while new microprograms and micro-credentials will be offered to private and public sector professionals, including industry certifications (e.g., NSE, IBM, CompTIA).
Canadian companies are paying nearly $7 million on average in data breach costs – the third highest in the world, according to IBM’s 2023 Cost of a Data Breach Report. Incident response (IR) training such as that to be delivered through the uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range is one of the most effective ways to reduce breach costs. In fact, as set out in the report, globally, organizations saved $1.49 million on average in breach costs when they had a trained IR team and regularly tested plans.
“Globally cyberattacks are on the rise. The new uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range will help the university enrich its curriculum and train cyber security experts with the skills and knowledge to debunk serious security breaches,” said Jacques Frémont, President and Vice Chancellor at the University of Ottawa. “Our partnership with IBM Canada will also help fund innovative research in cyber safety, which will help keep governments, organizations and Canadians one step ahead of cyber threats.”
The uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range is the result of a multi-year partnership announced in 2021 with the goal of developing a more resilient cyber landscape for Canada.
“The uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range will deliver an extraordinary level of training and experience for Canadian business and government leaders as they face increasingly sophisticated security threats posed by cybercriminals,” said Dave McCann, president of IBM Canada. “This partnership between IBM and the University of Ottawa is a momentous step forward in empowering organizations with the essential skills they need to defend and respond effectively to cyberattacks. In a digital landscape as vast as Canada, the uOttawa-IBM Cyber Range has the potential to be a game-changer, offering businesses across the country the experience, knowledge and expertise they need to protect and safeguard their operations.”
This is the third IBM Cyber Range in the world, and IBM Canada’s first university-based range. IBM operates two other Cyber Ranges located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Bangalore, India.
