CyCube, ISMG Join Forces to Better Train AI-Era Defenders

Information Security Media Group made a strategic investment in Israeli startup CyCube to connect intelligence from research and conferences with adaptive cybersecurity training labs.

See Also: How AWS-Qualys Alliance Powers Risk-Aware Cloud Security

Artificial intelligence’s ability to fuel scalable, automated attacks has increased the need for dynamic, hands-on training platforms that respond to learners’ skill levels and real-time threats, said Carlos Enamorado, director of product strategy and partnerships for CyberEd.io, ISMG’s education platform. He said the ISMG-CyCube partnership will use AI to enable dynamic labs, continuous assessment and learner personalization. (see: ISMG Partners With CyCube to Advance AI-Driven Cyber Resilience and Education).

“CyCube can translate any insights directly into hands-on, adaptive labs and some assessment,” CyCube founder and CEO Etti Berger told ISMG. “So, security teams don’t just hear about threats or risks or attacks, but actually, they can actively train against them. It’s a natural bridge between the industry, intelligence and operational readiness.”

Berger said both CyCube and ISMG share a vision for preparing the workforce to not just understand cyberthreats, but to actively defend against them through immersive, hands-on training. By integrating CyCube, CyberEd.io can transition from being an educational content provider to a skills and readiness ecosystem, enabling measurable performance tracking, role-based learning and practical testing.

“We’re seeing adaptive systems that use AI, machine learning and even reinforcement learning to adjust the difficulty, the sequencing of the assessments and the lab environments, and also the feedback involved,” Enamorado told ISMG.

Why Training Needs Skill Validation, Not Content Consumption

Traditional cybersecurity training often stops at knowledge transfer, but in the real-world, Enamorado said, organizations need people who can respond effectively under pressure, not just people who know the theory. This gap calls for skill validation rather than content consumption, and CyberEd.io will use data and adaptive learning to continuously assess user skills and provide feedback, Enamorado said.

“We know that there’s a growing gap between what traditional training provides and what security teams are accountable for,” Enamorado said. “This is absolutely nothing new. Organizations, we’re finding out, don’t just need the knowledge. They need demonstrated performance.”

Attackers use AI to create polymorphic malware, automate phishing attacks and launch coordinated, multi-step exploits with minimal human oversight, Enamorado said. This surge in automated threat sophistication places immense pressure on security teams to move beyond recognizing known patterns and instead focus on deeper situational awareness and proactive defense.

“We’re seeing automated phishing attacks, where exploits are being generated at a quick pace,” Enamorado said. “Not only generated, but the variants of exploits out there are readily available. We have AI creating malware that adapts in real time – polymorphic malware, and even down to a coordinated multi-step attacks. All of that with minimal human oversight.”

CyCube uses AI to adjust scenarios on the fly based on how the learner interacts with the exercise, Berger said, tracking decision-making under pressure, prioritization strategies and technical execution in unpredictable scenarios. Unlike point-in-time exams or rigid simulations, CyCube’s platform allows scenarios to unfold unpredictably, more accurately reflecting real-world incidents, Berger said.

“On the assessment side, AI enables continuous resilience measurement, rather than just point-in-time testing,” Berger said. “We can evaluate not only the technical execution, but also the judgment, the prioritization, the corroboration and recovery speed under pressure.”

How Insights From ISMG Conferences Can Translate Into Labs

ISMG’s global conferences such as NullCon, Hardware.io and ManuSec provide early visibility into cutting-edge techniques, live vulnerabilities and emerging threats before they reach broader public awareness. The integration with CyCube helps these insights to be rapidly transformed into labs, exercises and assessments, shortening the cycle between learning about a threat and being able to train against it.

“Until this partnership, most of the labs, most of the exercise, most of the knowledge are coming internally from our employees,” Berger said. “Although our employees are former Israeli Defense Force cybersecurity, it’s nothing like converting some conferences’ insights into real-life, hands-on experience. We can learn from live demos, from live events, ‘What is the new exploit chain or attack techniques?'”

Different sectors have fundamentally different training needs, Berger said, with enterprises focused on business impact and speed of response, government agencies prioritizing national infrastructure protection and academic institutions centered on workforce readiness. ISMG and CyCube can tailor training not just to individual learners, but also to sector-specific contexts in which they operate.

“For enterprises, its faster triage, fewer misconfigurations and less human error,” Enamorado said. “For government, it’s operational readiness, consistency and really a defensible evaluation. And then moving on to academia, it’s learning outcomes and employability. We’re taking all of that high-level insight, blending it with the technical research CyCube has and giving that learner a well-rounded experience.”

Cyber professionals need regular practice, ongoing validation and the ability to adapt rapidly to new attack techniques, which Enamorado said is why ISMG is combining real-world intelligence with adaptive training. To prepare for AI-driven threats, Berger said defenders must continually reassess, retrain and upskill through personalized, scenario-driven experiences.

“You need to continue and practice and upskill your abilities,” Berger said. “This goes the same for cybersecurity. There is no, ‘You are a professional, and that’s it. You reach to the top of the knowledge.’ You need to keep going and practice. Now that AI is coming to the world, everything that we know is being changed, so we need always to keep assessing our skill.”