Making the Most of Custom Lab Builder: A Guide to Writing Inclusively for All
Language shapes how people perceive and engage with content, so it’s crucial to consider the kind of words you use. Using outdated terminology can offend and disengage learners, as well as hurt a company’s reputation. This blog is the second in a series on making the most of the Lab Builder, looking at what we call the Four Cs. Ensuring your writing is… Conscious Consistent Conversational Concise The previous post in this series looked at accessibility. In this post, we’ll explore what it means to write consciously and inclusively, share practical tips, and show how our platform supports this critical effort. Why is inclusive language important? Inclusive language avoids bias, respects diversity, and ensures accessibility for all. In cybersecurity, it means using terms that foster collaboration and trust, avoiding outdated or harmful phrases, and creating welcoming and empowering content The Quality Team at Immersive Labs is committed to staying up to date with how language changes in the cyber industry. We regularly undertake research and speak to other industry professionals to ensure that our language is appropriate. Words to avoid We recommend avoiding specific terms that some people may find offensive, and some socially charged language that may have negative connotations. Non-inclusive language to avoid Preferred inclusive versions Whitelist/Blacklist Allowlist/Denylist White hat/Black hat hackers Ethical/Unethical hackers Master/Slave Leader/Follower, Primary/Replica, Primary/Standby Grandfathered Legacy status Gendered pronouns (e.g. assuming “he/him/his”) They, them, their Gendered pronouns (e.g. “guys”) Folks, people, you all, y’all Man hours, man power Hours, engineer hours, workforce, staffing Man-in-the-middle attack Machine-in-the-middle attack Sanity check Quick check, confidence check, coherence check Dummy value Placeholder value, sample value Crazy, insane Amazing, incredible, or any other appropriate adjective Socially charged words Preferred inclusive versions Native Built-in, default, pre-installed, integrated, core Abort Stop, cancel, end, force quit Cripple Disable, impair, damage, destroy, ruin Kill Stop, force quit, close, shut down Trigger Activate, initiate, cause, launch Unsure if a phrase you’ve used could be seen as offensive? Ask yourself: is this the most accurate and appropriate choice? Often, you can find a more descriptive word and avoid using these examples. Top tips for inclusive language Use writing tools Tools like Grammarly can help identify problematic words or phrases. You can create customized lists in Grammarly, which will then flag when a word has been used in your writing. Additionally, there are many inclusive language guides available online. Keep it short and sweet Use short sentences and paragraphs. Shorter sentences are easier to read, scan, and understand – especially for those with cognitive disabilities. Aim for sentences around 10–15 words, with variation for a natural flow. Avoid sentences longer than 20 words, as they can be harder to follow. Read aloud Proofread your work aloud to catch awkward phrasing, overly complex sentences, or insensitive terms. Hearing the words can help identify spots where clarity or tone might need improvement. Get a second opinion Ask a colleague to review your final version. A fresh set of eyes can spot language that might be unclear, inappropriate, or overly complicated. Share your thoughts Now that Lab Builder is here and you’ve had a chance to create your own content, how have you made your content more inclusive? We’re always looking to stay up to date, so if you have any further suggestions to add to our list of words to avoid or any other tips, let us know! We’d love to learn from you and grow the collective community knowledge.Making the Most of the Custom Lab Builder: Writing With Accessibility in Mind
What if someone tried to access your content who was visually impaired? Or who had cognitive difficulties? Or who was hard of hearing? Would they be able to understand the information you’ve provided and improve their cyber resilience? Our in-house copyediting team has created a series of articles to help you craft high-quality labs, aligned to the rigorous processes we follow. We embrace what we call the Four Cs to ensure all labs are: Consistent Conscious Conversational Concise These articles delve into each of these principles, showing how to implement them in your labs to create content that resonates with readers, enhances learning, and boosts cyber resilience. This post highlights how being conscious of your formatting can enhance accessibility for assistive technology users and how consistent formatting improves navigation for everyone. Rich text formatting Rich text formatting tools like subheadings, bullet points, lists, and tables in the Custom Lab Builder help organise information for easier scanning, better retention, and improved comprehension. Using these will ensure your content is consistent, accessible, and reader-friendly for everyone! Rich text formatting elements carry specific meaning, which assistive technologies rely on to convey information to specific users. Headings Visually, headings represent hierarchy through different font styling and allow users to quickly scan content. Programmatically, they allow users who can’t see or perceive the visual styling to access the same structural ability to scan. Heading elements should reflect the structure of the content. So your title should go in ‘Heading 1’ formatting, your next subheading will go in ‘Heading 2’ formatting, and so on. To ensure your content reads correctly to screen reader users, don’t use HTML heading styling to represent emphasis, and don’t use bold to make text appear like a heading. Lists (bullets/numbering) Always use bullets or numbered lists using the provided formatting to convey a list. A screen reader will announce that the following information is a list. Links How a link is formed significantly impacts usability. Consider the following sentence: “To find out more about this topic, complete our Intro to Code Injection lab here.” Links are interactive elements, which means you can navigate to them using the tab key. A user who relies on screen magnification to consume content may choose to tab through content to see what's available. The example above would be communicated as just “here”, which provides no context. They’d need to manually scroll back to understand the link’s purpose. Always use descriptive link text that clearly indicates its destination. Avoid ambiguous phrases like “here”. If that’s not possible, ensure the surrounding text provides clear context. “To find out more about this topic, complete our Intro to Code Injection lab.” Bold Only use bold for emphasis! Avoid italics, capital letters, or underlining (reserved for hyperlinks) to prevent confusion. Consistency in formatting reduces cognitive load, making your text more accessible. Bold stands out, provides better contrast, and helps readers quickly identify key information. Avoid italics With 15–20% of the population having dyslexia, italics are worth avoiding because research shows it’s harder for this user group to read italic text. Italics can sometimes bunch up into the next non-italic word, which can be difficult to comprehend or distracting to read. Media If you’re adding media to your labs, such as videos and images, it’s especially important to consider those who use assistive technologies. These users need to have the same chance of understanding the content as everyone else. They shouldn’t miss out on crucial learning. What is alternative text? Alt text describes the appearance and function of an image. It’s the written copy that appears if the image fails to load, but also helps screen reading tools describe images to visually impaired people. Imagine you’re reading aloud over the phone to someone who needs to understand the content. Think about the purpose of the image. Does it inform users about something specific, or is it just decoration? This should help you decide what (if any) information or function the images have, and what to write as your alternative text. Videos Any videos you add to your lab should have a transcript or subtitles for those who can’t hear it. Being consistent Consistency is a major thinking point for accessibility. We recommend adhering to a style guide so all of your labs look and feel consistent. We recommend thinking about the structure of your labs and keeping them consistent for easy navigation. In our labs, users expect an introduction, main content, and a concluding “In This Lab” section outlining the task. This helps users recognize certain elements of the product. It reduces distraction and allows easier navigation on the page. For example, some users prefer diving into practical tasks and referring back to the content if they need it. By using the same structure across your lab collections, your users will know exactly where to find the instructions as soon as they start. TL;DR It’s crucial to focus on accessibility when writing your custom labs. Utilise the built-in rich text formatting options in the Custom Lab Builder (and stay consistent with how you use them!) to ensure your labs are easy to navigate for every single user. By being conscious and consistent with your formatting, every user will engage with your content better, remember the topic, and be able to put it into practice more easily, improving their cybersecurity knowledge and driving their cyber resilience. No matter how they consume content. Keep your eyes peeled for the next blog post in this series, which will look at inclusive language. Share your thoughts! There’s so much information out there on creating accessible content. This blog post just focused on the language, structure, and current formatting options available in the Custom Lab Builder. Have you tried to make your labs or upskilling more accessible, and how did this go down with your users? Do you have any other suggestions for the community on how to write content with accessibility in mind? Share them in the comments below!
Detecting Sliver - Team Sim
Hello, Cyber Team Sim - Detecting Sliver Following the Debrief/answers - I'm stuck on Answer 1. our velociraptor hunts are coming back as "access is denied" - limiting us to continue any further in the lab. It is run on the Analyst Windows machine. Wondering if you have any tips or tricks for us to grant access Best regards, MartinNew Team Sim Content: (Defensive) Operation Vulpes
Operation Vulpes is a defensive scenario and marks a return of using Splunk as the SIEM solution. This scenario sees Orchid Corporation reeling from the aftermath of a ransomware attack. Defenders will need to determine the attacker's path to compromise and infect the network and use information provided by a law enforcement agency to attempt to recover files. Users will need to use a variety of tools and defensive disciplines to solve the scenario – not just the SIEM solution. This sim also utilizes our new user noise generation framework to simulate user web browsing activity on end-user devices. This spawns the Edge browser as a domain user and visits internal and external websites to add additional noise to logs collected by Splunk. Why have we created this content? This Team Sim adds a level of complexity and realism by introducing actual ransomware. So you and your teams can exercise and prepare for the worst-case scenario. (Please be aware that Immersive Labs created the ransomware for exercise purposes only and includes failsafes to control its execution.) In addition, the sim uses popular tools within security stacks, so the simulation is true to life. What are we publishing? A new Team Sim exercise, Operation Vulpes, which will be viewable in the Team Sim catalog for all Team Sim customers. Who is this content for? This Team Sim is primarily focused on testing the defensive and technical capabilities of the following roles: SOC analysts Incident responders Threat hunters Check it out now!Team Sim: Best Approaches for Your Team
A common issue in Team Sim exercises is when one player works in isolation, leaving others behind and missing the chance to build key team skills. To get the most out of a Team Sim exercise, the focus should be on teamwork – it’s in the name! Whether your team is meeting for the first time or has worked together every day for many years, here are some common characteristics and actions I’ve consistently seen in the best-performing teams: 1. Team leader Regardless of the person’s day-to-day role, a nominated team leader is the essential glue for any team. Some responsibilities I’ve seen effective team leaders adopt include chairing discussions, driving the group to a consensus and a clear decision, being the team’s representative for exercise manager communications, ensuring the team stays organized, and encouraging a positive experience for every member. 2. Pre-exercise team meeting A good plan will start the team on solid footing. High-performing teams bring everyone together before starting the exercise to agree on the approaches and rules of engagement. If you’re meeting the team for the first time, taking the time for introductions is critical to a comfortable environment. 3. Clear communication channels Establishing clear communications for sharing technical information and virtual conferencing details (if required). We recommend setting up a temporary private messaging group in your organization’s approved communications platform. Every team member should know how and where to ask questions or ask for support. 4. Blocked out exercise time Depending on how you approach the exercise (more on this later), teams that reserve time in their calendars in advance tend to have greater attendance and engagement. The effectiveness of team exercises depends on factors like team size, communication medium (in-person, virtual, or hybrid), time zones, skill levels, and goals. For example, do you want to put a well-known team to the test or have junior members learn from experienced analysts? In the spirit of collaboration, we have some tried and tested team approaches that we know work well in bringing people together. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages, so bear this in mind when thinking about what works best for you and your team. One Team This involves the entire team working through the exercise together, either in person or virtually, maintaining constant communication and progressing at the same pace. This is the most common approach and is great for information sharing and peer learning. However, in larger teams, there’s a higher risk of some members falling behind, reducing their engagement. Chairperson Somewhat contrary to our earlier sentiments, this approach requires players to conduct portions of the exercise tasks alone, before coming together as a team during regular checkpoint meetings to discuss and validate each other's answers and findings. The team must agree on an answer before a chairperson submits the answer to a question in Team Sim. This is a slower approach, but it provides every player a chance to experience the whole exercise while encouraging knowledge sharing and exposure to different approaches and styles. Relay This is best for geographically split teams and perfect for exercising handover communication! Teams work on segments (e.g., specific time blocks or question sets) and pass their findings to the next team. Handoffs should mirror real incidents, addressing findings, uncertainties, and further investigations. A post-exercise debrief is a great opportunity to review and improve handover processes and communication skills. Team Strengths No two people are the same, and you may have specialists or people with particular strengths you can lean on. As you progress through the exercise and require different skills and knowledge, engaging those specialists can be an effective way to tackle a problem as a true team. Identify those strengths early on so you know what's in your team’s arsenal! Want a challenge? Do the opposite and encourage the team to use the skills they find challenging! If you want to save a copy of these approach ideas, check out our Team Sim Player Guide, which you can download and share. Share your thoughts This isn’t an exhaustive list of approaches; be creative with your team to find what works best for you. If you’ve participated in a Team Sim exercise before, let us know your tips for creating a top-class team dynamic!Defend as One: Breaking Down Technical Barriers Across an Organisation Through Technical Team Exercising
This article details how a public healthcare account used Immersive Labs’ Cyber Team Simulation for a cross-departmental May Day programme, benchmarking national cyber capabilities. As their Cyber Workforce Advisor, I’ll outline the steps taken, from planning to execution, to achieve this strategic programme.
