I use Labshock for two very different audiences: training professional OT cybersecurity engineers and teaching college students about industrial control systems (ICS) and OT security. Having a platform that works for both is incredibly valuable. One of the biggest challenges in OT cybersecurity is giving people meaningful hands-on experience without requiring access to expensive industrial equipment or putting production environments at risk. Labshock helps solve that problem by providing realistic industrial environments where users can explore OT networks, understand industrial protocols, and practice cybersecurity concepts. For my OT security engineers, it provides an opportunity to develop and sharpen technical skills in an environment where they can safely experiment. For my college students, it helps bridge the gap between classroom theory and what actually happens inside industrial environments. I especially appreciate being able to incorporate Labshock into a structured, semester-long industrial security course. Students get to do more than read about PLCs, SCADA, industrial networks, and cyber threats. They get to interact with these concepts firsthand.

I have been using Labshock for a couple years now in the class I teach at George Mason University. I have found that it is easy to use and provides students with a really good virtualized set of ICS/OT environments. It runs on multiple platforms without any difficulty and the developers are extremely responsive if any issues do come up. The free version is good enough for students to get an introduction with more advanced features available in the paid subscriptions.

Labshock makes it possible to learn and test OT security in a hands-on way, which is usually not that easy to access or work with. It also offers a gamified platform that helps make the learning experience more engaging. It also allows to integrate external platforms and tools for testing. The support from Labshock is always quick and available. Lastly, the price is very competitive.