AI-based scenario management for cyber range training (ASCERT)
- Department Applied Research in Information Technology
- Fields involved Digital transformation
- Industries involved Community, Technology and industry
Society is facing a precarious shortage of cybersecurity professionals and the gap between the demand and the availability of qualified labour is widening.
ASCERT supports both the private and public sector by offering training and professional development in cybersecurity, with a particular focus on practical crisis management exercises.
A growing shortage of cybersecurity expertise
A recent report by the Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), prepared on behalf of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, titled “The Labour Market’s Need for Digital Security Competence Towards 2030,” shows that Norway will continue to face a significant shortage of digital security expertise in the years ahead.
Even though educational reach in digital security has expanded, there is growing demand the labour market for these skills. The sharp increase in cyberattacks fuels intense competition, frequently depleting the labour market of expertise. and often leaves the market depleted of expertise.
Practical training for efficient crisis management
To address this challenge, systematic opportunities for continuing education and professional development in both the private and public sector is key. This involves not only theoretical training, but also practical exercises in crisis management.
Employees need to develop applicable skills in handling complex and unpredictable incidents in cybersecurity, improve collaboration across organisational levels, and strengthen their ability to respond quickly and in a coordinated manner when security breaches occur.
Planning and conducting realistic exercises requires considerable time, resources, and expertise. These investments are weakened by the fact that there are few reliable methods for measuring participants’ learning and skills development over time, which makes it difficult to assess the actual learning outcomes and adapt training in a targeted way.
The ASCERT project
In the ASCERT project, we are developing tools and methods to make it easier to plan, conduct, and evaluate cybersecurity exercises.
By combining artificial intelligence, learning theory, and co-creation, the project aims to establish a holistic workflow for the design, execution, and evaluation of such exercises.
To learn more about this project, please contact:
Project: ASCERT
Partners: The Norwegian Offshore Directorate, Levato, EcoOnline, NTNU Cyber Range
Funding: The Research Council of Norway
Period: 2021 – 2025
Further resources:
Project Bank (external link)
Publications:
Balto, K. E., M. M. Yamin, A. Shalaginov, and B. Katt, “Hybrid IoT Cyber Range,” Sensors, vol. 23, no. 6, p. 3071, 2023.
Færøy, F. L., M. M. Yamin, A. Shukla, and B. Katt, “Automatic Verification and Execution of Cyber Attack on IoT Devices,” Sensors, vol. 23, no. 2, p. 733, 2023.
Hannay, J. E., A. Stolpe, and M. M. Yamin, “Toward AI-based scenario management for cyber range training,” in HCI International 2021 – Late Breaking Papers: Multimodality, eXtended Reality, and Artificial Intelligence (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), 23rd HCI International Conference, HCII 2021, Virtual Event, July 24–29, 2021. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2021.
Shukla, A., B. Katt, and M. M. Yamin, “A quantitative framework for security assurance evaluation and selection of cloud services: a case study,” International Journal of Information Security, pp. 1-30, 2023.
Stolpe, A., I. Rummelhoff, and J. E. Hannay, “A logic-based event controller for means-end reasoning in simulation environments,” SIMULATION, vol. 99, no. 8, pp. 831-858, 2023.
Yamin, M. M., E. Hashmi, M. Ullah, and B. Katt, “Applications of LLMs for Generating Cyber Security Exercise Scenarios,” IEEE Access, vol. 12, pp. 143806-143822, 2024.
Yamin, M. M., E. Hashmi, and B. Katt, “Combining Uncensored and Censored LLMs for Ransomware Generation,” in Web Information Systems Engineering – WISE 2024 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 15439), M. Barhamgi, H. Wang, and X. Wang, Eds. Singapore: Springer, 2025.
Yamin, M. M., S. F. Wen, and B. Katt, “AI-Assisted Assurance Profile Creation for System Security Assurance,” in Computer Security. ESORICS 2024 International Workshops (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 15264), J. Garcia-Alfaro et al., Eds. Cham: Springer, 2025.
Yamin, M. M., A. S. Imran, and B. Katt, “Towards a Digital Twin for Lifelong Learning,” in Proc. 2023 4th Int. Conf. Computing, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies (iCoMET). IEEE, 2023.
Yamin, M. M., et al., “ADAPT – Automated Defence TrAining PlaTform in a Cyber Range,” in Proc. Int. Conf. Information Systems and Management Science. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2022.