Gamified Cyber Range Training and Skills Assessment for Government and Enterprise Teams

Aries Security is a Wilmington, Delaware company that builds hands-on cyber training and assessment systems for government, military and enterprise security teams. Founded in 2008 by Brian Markus and his team, who ran the Capture The Packet contest at DEF CON, the firm grew from hacker-conference competition into a manufacturer of cyber ranges, a custom challenge-content developer and, more recently, a builder of private AI hardware. Named customers span the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security and Fortune 500 enterprises.

The flagship product, Capture The Packet, packages an entire range — firewall, DHCP, VPN, VLAN, remote desktop gateway and virtual desktops — into a rugged portable appliance or a cloud environment hosted on partner platforms such as AWS. Participants solve capture-the-flag challenges against isolated hostile network traffic using their own mission tools or supplied Kali desktops, while an anti-collusion system blocks answer sharing and a built-in hint engine supports less experienced players. Administrators build scenarios through a wizard and can remotely view any player's VM.

What separates the platform from conventional courseware is measurement: the patented Cyber PT card charts an operator's progression across disciplines using answer times and hint usage, sorts challenges by NICE work role or KSA, and produces CPE-eligible reports for certifications such as CISSP and GSEC. That analytics layer, quarterly content refreshes and integration with third-party environments including SimSpace PCTE and the Air National Guard's VITE underpinned a 2016 OASD contract and installations across 18 ANG cyber operations units.