Pioneering work for Hewlett-Packard

Establishment of a Cyber Defence Center in Palo Alto

Cyber Defence Center flagship project

In addition to detecting and responding to cyber attacks, the Cyber Defence Center is also of strategic importance to HP. As a provider of security services and products, the CDC is also the technological showroom for modern information security made by Hewlett Packard. At the corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, HP shows customers and visitors how in-house products and solutions work together to ensure the highest level of information security.

Expertise of ConSecur GmbH

Hewlett Packard is setting new standards in cyber defence. The IT group is securing its global IT infrastructure against external and internal cyber attacks with a state-of-the-art Cyber Defence Centre (CDC) in Palo Alto. The CDC is also set up as a think tank that will continuously produce innovations for a more secure digital world. To set up the Cyber Defence Center, HP relied on the expertise of ConSe- cur GmbH, which also developed standards for the selection and training of IT security analysts in a 15-month project.

The task

Recruiting heads for the Cyber Defence Center

The Cyber Defence Center needed to fill 16 positions with analysts within a very short space of time. Recruiting suitable people was therefore a top priority. As there was no traditional training path to become an IT security analyst, ConSecur developed a process for identifying suitable applicants that included recruitment criteria for security analysts and defined an objective assessment scheme.

ConSecur consultants Enrico Hartema, Guido Steentjes, Stephan Ilic and Tammo Oepkes, who travelled to Palo Alto in teams of two, have thus created a valid decision-making basis for hiring suitable employees and done pioneering work in employee qualification.

Those who work at HP's Cyber Defence Centers possess key skills such as a strong analytical mindset and a high level of problem-solving expertise. "An IT background is not a recruitment criterion," explains Tammo Oepkes. Today, HP employs a trained marine biologist and a former Apple product salesman in its Cyber Defence Centre. "Both have the qualities that characterise an IT security analyst," says Stephan Ilic.

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Training content developed for IT security analysts

ConSecur developed training content for the qualification of the IT security analysts hired, which prepared them for their daily work at the Cyber Defence Centre. This ConSecur training programme, which lasted several months, included basic work such as technical fundamentals, communication training and "hacking events" in which the analysts assumed the position of the attacker.

Methodology and analytics formed the second focus of the training, in which ConSecur also instructed the IT security analysts in threat intelligence. This analytical approach involves evaluating information and data from outside the company, for example from relevant cybercrime forums or published analyses of attacks on other organisations.

Threat intelligence is a basis for identifying future threats and, if possible, warding them off in advance.

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