3. Hack the Box

Founders: Haris Pylarinos, James Hooker, Aris Zikopoulos
Founded: 2017
Website: hackthebox.com

Cybersecurity threats change by the minute, and failing to keep up with the latest emerging risks can put businesses worldwide in real peril. As some big profile names have found out the hard way, it only takes a momentary lapse to expose your company’s data to a hack that could cripple your operations or cost you the trust of your customers.

Hack the Box is tackling a business-critical issue that is putting organisations at risk today – the cybersecurity skills gap.

It does this through its unique and ever-evolving online cybersecurity training, upskilling, and certification platform. This allows individuals, businesses, and universities to level up their offensive and defensive security skills in a gamified and engaging learning environment. The platform is backed by a growing community of more than 1.5 million members. Big-name brands, including Siemens, Toyota and EA Sports, are entrusting their cybersecurity training to Hack the Box.

Big-name brands, including Siemens, Toyota and EA Sports, are entrusting their cybersecurity training to Hack the Box.

So, why learn about cybersecurity this way, instead of trusting in the usual IT training modules offered at most modern businesses? Hack The Box founder Haris Pylarinos celebrates how the platform “connects cyber-ready humans and organisations through highly engaging hacking experiences that cultivate out-of-the-box thinking.”

The Hack the Box training environment offers both guided and exploratory content that encompasses the vast majority of technologies and infrastructures, from traditional networks, endpoints, and web applications all the way to cloud-based implementations.

Complex as some of the terminology may sound from the outside, the aim of Hack the Box is to be inclusive, helping individuals of all backgrounds, skill levels, and industries keep pace with the rapidly-evolving technology and threat landscape.

A community can provide the biggest pool of knowledge. By tapping into it, you enable everyone to continuously learn and advance.

Based in the South East, the company’s aim is to engage businesses and their employees with an active understanding of the cybersecurity threat landscape. It’s not about dry modules and box ticking you can do on your morning tea break, but instead, highly entertaining learning content that mimics real-world threat scenarios and features the latest up-to-date attack techniques and methods.

“Hack The Box was built by hackers for hackers,” says Pylarinos. “Traditional training content is often obsolete and unrealistic, leaving a gap in the industry for robust, flexible and cloud-based cybersecurity training.”

Rather than holding the hands of its users or guiding them in a fashion that leads to lower genuine engagement, Hack the Box encourages users to hone their hacking skills in action. It’s done this by uniting like-minded people and enabling the exchange of knowledge – there’s a strong community aspect to Hack the Box, which truly sets it apart from traditional training modules.

“A community can provide the biggest pool of knowledge,” argues Pylarinos. “By tapping into it, you enable everyone to continuously learn and advance.”

With multi-million funding rounds under its belt, and a rapidly growing infosecurity community that counts over 1.5 million platform members to date, the future looks secure for Hack the Box and its innovative approach to cybersecurity threat awareness. The digital threat landscape is constantly moving, giving Hack the Box a convincing environment for continued growth.