INSIGHTS
Our cybersecurity expert shares his top tips on keeping your data safe and sound

Game-based training is the radical new approach that’s empowering people and organizations to reach their peak potential.

This article was originally written by the CyberNews Team

One of the companies specializing in gamified education is Attensi. Using gaming mechanics, Attensi’s training solutions drive engagement, positive behavior change, and increased knowledge, all in a safe-to-fail environment. With product solutions featuring competitive elements from the gaming industry – such as earning points on completion, collecting awards, and competing against colleagues on a leaderboard – users are motivated to master new skills.

To find out more, Cybernews invited Øyvind Hvidsten, gamification expert and principal security engineer at Attensi, to give us the lowdown on gamified simulation training, why it’s a game changer for learning and development, and his top cybersecurity tips.

 

Let’s go back to the very beginning. What has the journey been like since your launch?

Coming from the gaming business, we had deep insight into both the technology and psychology of what makes engaging and fun gaming experiences. We wanted to make these capabilities available to everyone in corporate learning and development by developing the best no-code platform out there for simulation-based learning.

We’ve been doing this for eight years now, growing bigger every year with even more successful, global clients like Circle K, Accenture, and Novartis. Our team is now 250-strong across Oslo, London, Cologne, and Boston.

 

Can you introduce us to your gamified simulation training solutions? What are its key features?

Gamified simulation training is what happens when you bring together sophisticated gaming mechanics, some of the best writers and designers, and human psychology.

The modern alternative to traditional training, your team will immerse themselves in authentic scenarios, involving human interactions, realistic workplace processes, and systems. As in any other game, if they get things wrong, they can simply have another go.

Unlike more traditional learning methods, there’s nothing passive about gamified simulation training. This ground-breaking simulation approach is all about taking an active role in learning and development.

In your opinion, which industries would greatly benefit from implementing gamified solutions?

We strongly believe that all industries could benefit greatly from simulation-based training. We have customers across an array of sectors, including retail, hospitality, finance, professional services, energy, and pharma, to name but a few.

What characterizes our customers is that they have a genuine belief that training matters, and that in order to impact company KPIs they need to provide learning that sticks. Gamified training is something that you repeat and remember because it’s fun and relevant.

 

How did recent global events affect your field of work? Were there any new features added to your services as a result?

One example of such a feature development is our initiative to make sure we are on top of the privacy game. This is particularly important with various global regulations like GDPR and FISA changing every year. The proper segregation of tenants, not collecting or processing any extraneous data, the right to be forgotten, and proper anonymization of statistical data are critical in adhering to and exceeding security best practices.

 

Talking about cybersecurity training, what techniques should be used to ensure the most effective training?

  • Gamification can help make security training fun
  • Repetition helps information stick. If you think about the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, 90% of what’s learned in the first month is forgotten. That’s why it is crucial to reinforce what you’ve learned through repetition.
  • Make security training accessible. It should be part of the daily workflow, templates, and infrastructure. Security should be routine, something you’d have to go out of your way to avoid, instead of something you must remember to include.

 

In this age of ever-evolving technology, what do you think are the key security measures everyone should implement on their devices?

  • Two-factor authentication everywhere
  • Keep up to date with an operating system and application versions
  • Make sure the device uses encrypted storage

 

What types of solutions or tools do you think are little-known, but greatly enhance business operations?

Company-wide, unified credential storage. There are many different providers of this, yet people are still putting passwords in text documents.

Haveibeenpwned.com’s password-checking API is an example that can be integrated into your solution. It automatically denies any password that’s been previously leaked, even if it otherwise follows every single password restriction rule you have.

Bug bounties – many companies are afraid to try this. You’ll always have individuals testing your security, even if you’ve never initiated a security audit. If you offer to pay them for their findings, you’ll get the opportunity to learn about their testing and results. If you don’t, their findings could be potentially sold on the dark web – and you won’t know about it until it’s too late.

 

Where do you hope to see simulation solutions used more often in the future?

We are really looking forward to bringing our next wave of products to the market that’ll push the boundaries of learning technology. These include Virtual Reality and voice recognition.

 

Would you like to share what’s next for Attensi?

Next for Attensi is to expand even further into new sectors and new locations, with North America top of the list!

We’ll also onboard even more superstar #gamechangers to our team across the globe – spreading the word of simulation-based training!

Are you ready to level up your training?

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