Building on its experience in helping to develop and operate cyber ranges for government customers, ManTech International [MANT] on Wednesday officially launched a new cyber security range to provide existing and new customers with a relatively rapid way to safely simulate their own networks for preparedness, training, testing and evaluation purposes.
ManTech actually opened its “military-grade” Advanced Cyber Range Environment earlier this summer and touts it as providing potential customers with virtual features that allow it to keep with up with state-of-the-art capabilities, rather than being weighed down with just its own server architecture.
The new range can be set up quickly to emulate a customer’s network for “live-fire exercises” using the most recent viruses and other threats, such as the Wannacry ransomware that attacked computers worldwide this spring, as well as testing and evaluating cyber security technologies, Yvonne Vervaet, chief growth officer for ManTech’s Mission, Cyber & Intelligence Solutions Group, told Defense Daily at the Intelligence & National Security Summit co-hosted by AFCEA and INSA. She said the range can simulate networks of the Department of Homeland Security, which is a customer, in two to three weeks versus the year it might take using more traditional range setups.
The range can be tailored for use by a wide range of customers and can be used by customers to reduce their vulnerabilities and help them better recover from cyber attacks, Bill Varner, president of the Mission, Cyber & Intelligence Solutions Group, said in the interview.
ManTech has been involved for the past 10 years cyber ranges in the Defense Department, and designed, built and operated the DoD Cyber Range.
The business model for the new range is commercial-oriented service and ManTech expects it will generate high-volume demand from customers who will need it for short durations, Varner said.
The Advanced Cyber Range Environment will also be packaged as part of the solutions it can provide existing and future customers, Vervaet said. The company is already using it with DHS through task orders under the department’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program that provides cyber security capabilities to federal civilian networks, she said.
In addition to DHS, ManTech has supported the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Departments of Justice, and Health and Human Services, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in responding to and recovering from recent malware attacks, the company said.