MAVI Interactive of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA, has won the Gold Stevie® Award for Best Training Application in the app awards categories of The 2012 International Business Awards, the world's premier business awards competition. (2013 entries will open in January. Join our mailing list and be the first to receive the 2013 IBA entry kit.)
First released in 2010, the Agent Surefire series of immersive cyber-security training games allow trainees to practice—in first person view—how to notice and avoid cyber-security vulnerabilities inside a workspace. The Stevie Award-winning Agent Surefire: Insider Threat is the third chapter in this series.
Bora Aytun, co-founder and CEO of MAVI Interactive, says: “Gaining critical-thinking skills is essential in securing an organization’s intellectual property.
“Cyber attacks are constantly evolving. It is next to impossible to keep up with all the new threats. We simply must learn to recognize the signs and avoid common mistakes.”
The Weakest Link
Adds Aytun: “Cyber attackers always aim for the weakest link in the chain of defense, which is usually vulnerability caused by an individual’s day-to-day actions. Technology can’t always save users from making poor choices, so users must become aware of their direct impact in securing sensitive information.”
Aytun concludes: “Unfortunately, the standard security awareness training methods—such as slideshows, text, and illustrations—are usually perceived by the trainees as boring and complicated, even punitive. This creates resistance to the training. In an immersive game setting, however, the learning is engaging, experiential, and natural.”
How it’s Done
Trainees are asked to take on the role of “Agent Surefire”, find and categorize Threat Vectors and Vulnerabilities, and to stop an on-going breach from happening. The human-interest storyline keeps the attention level high, while the original score—played by a 30-piece orchestra—enhances the multi-sensory experience. (MAVI has posted a teaser video on Vimeo. If you would like to try the training game for yourself.)
The game content is run on the MAVI Serious Game Engine, which collects time-stamped behavioral information on each trainee, and provides training administrators with a clear understanding of each trainee's critical-thinking skills as well as identifying their weaknesses.
Says Aytun: “At MAVI, we are absolutely devoted to playing our part in creating a fundamental change in the way we train people. We believe that a majority of the great content our educators produce remains unabsorbed by trainees because of inefficient methods of delivery devised back in the 19th century. Neuroscience today is teaching us how to deliver content in ways the human brain can easily absorb. Our mission is to make the highest quality experiential learning available to the masses. With our powerful platform we create highly effective training simulations at a fraction of the cost and time.”
About Bora Aytun
Bora Aytun is the CEO of MAVI Interactive, LLC, which he co-founded in 2008. He is also the co-founder of MAVI Film, specializing in Internet/TV broadcast integration and B2B product development for the broadcast industry. Prior to that, he was IS Project Manager at Alpha Scientific Corporation. In 1990, Aytun started his own consulting company, MAVI Consulting, serving a number of media and marketing companies in Turkey from 1990 to 1998. Aytun has a degree in Business Administration and Communications from Ege University in Turkey.
About MAVI Interactive:
MAVI Interactive develops immersive training simulations and Serious Games. The company partners with industry leaders in training and education to create a wide range of engaging learning tools. MAVI’s partners and clients benefit from an award-winning gamification methodology and the MAVI Serious Gaming Engine and Platform to drastically reduce deployment time and costs in solving challenging training problems. For more information, call 888-708-6284 or visit the website at www.maviinteractive.com.
