Hack The Box adds defensive tools for cyber readiness

Hack The Box has expanded its cyber-readiness platform with new defensive security, crisis control and workforce intelligence tools, broadening its offering beyond offensive training.

The update adds a security operations centre training environment called SOC Range, crisis simulation tools under the name Crisis Control, an AI-assisted learning feature called HTB Coach, and new workforce development and curriculum management functions. The additions are intended to help security leaders assess operational readiness, identify skills gaps and track team performance.

The expansion follows Hack The Box's acquisition of Let's Defend, which added defensive training assets to a business more closely associated with offensive security exercises. Since that deal, it has increased its defensive security curriculum more than sixfold and now offers more than 230 defensive security courses through HTB Academy.

Role-based coverage has also widened to include threat hunter, SOC manager, incident responder and information security specialist. Its blue-team lab library has grown by nearly 70%.

Defensive focus

SOC Range is designed as a training environment for analysts before they handle live incidents. It includes more than 250 alerts for users to triage and investigate across different security operations roles and scenarios.

The product sits alongside the company's existing Threat Range exercises, which focus more on attack simulation and adversarial testing. Together, the tools are intended to create a path from individual training to team-based readiness in security operations.

Crisis Control extends the platform further into leadership-level incident preparedness. It combines technical investigation exercises with executive decision-making scenarios, reflecting a broader market focus on how cyber incidents are handled across technical and management teams.

Hack The Box also introduced HTB Coach, which provides AI-assisted guidance and explanations during training, along with new enterprise workforce development tools designed to give employers more structure in how they assign, monitor and measure learning across teams.

Skills pressure

The announcement comes as employers reassess cyber workforce planning in response to AI-driven changes in both attack methods and security operations. Organisations are under growing pressure to show not just that staff have completed training, but that teams can respond effectively in realistic operational conditions.

Hack The Box cited its own workforce intelligence research as evidence of a shift away from strict red-team versus blue-team separation and towards more collaborative security models. It argued that AI is changing job requirements and increasing demand for broader skill sets spanning attack, defence and analysis.

"Cybersecurity teams can no longer afford to think in silos," said Dawn-Marie Vaughan, Global Offering Lead - Cybersecurity at DXC. "The most effective professionals are the ones with skills that span the spectrum: those who understand how attackers think, how systems are built, and how defenses need to respond. It is no longer enough to understand only one side of the problem. The ability to attack in order to defend will define stronger, more resilient security teams going forward."

The latest platform changes are intended to respond to that shift by combining offensive, defensive and crisis-readiness training in one system. For employers, they also provide a way to compare existing staff skills with internal role requirements and identify where further development is needed.

Certification push

Alongside the product changes, Hack The Box said its HTB Defence Operations Analyst certificate programme has received Department of Defence Cyber Workforce Framework 8140 approval for multiple cyber defence work roles. It also said its Certified Offensive AI Expert qualification has been added to Synack's SRT Pathways programme, bringing the number of Hack The Box certifications recognised by Synack to four.

Those recognitions add a formal credential layer to a platform mostly known for practical labs and simulation-based learning. In the cyber training market, recognised certifications can help vendors appeal to employers seeking measurable outcomes from workforce development spending.

Hack The Box has nearly tripled its Academy module catalogue since 2023 and expanded its portfolio of attack simulations. Its global community now exceeds 4.3 million cybersecurity professionals.

Haris Pylarinos, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Hack The Box, said the changes are meant to give chief information security officers a clearer view of readiness across their organisations.

"As the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve, CISOs face pressure to ensure their teams are ready to respond to complex risks," said Pylarinos. "The nature of security work is changing quickly, and teams are being asked to do more than ever before. Security leaders need a clear view of the cyber capabilities their organization requires, how those requirements map to existing in-house skills, and where the most critical gaps remain. Our new capabilities enable CISOs to build a strategic cyber readiness plan across teams, roles and response functions, giving leaders greater confidence in their ability to prevent, detect and respond to attacks."