Abstract

Organizations faced increasing cybersecurity threats such as ransomware attacks while lacking incident response training aligned with industry standards. Existing solutions were fragmented and failed to provide realistic training scenarios. To address this gap, the team created CYBERGUARD, a web-based ransomware prevention and recovery training platform developed in the Replit cloud environment using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and deployed in the Microsoft Azure cloud hosting services which utilized the Azure Managed Services for the SQL database, authentication and infrastructure management. CYBERGUARD integrated security self-assessments, interactive incident response simulations and performance reporting aligned with industry standards including the NIST SP 800-53 and NIST SP 800-61, and the CISA Cybersecurity Performance Goals. Users evaluated their preparedness, participated in simulated threat scenarios, and received tailored reports identifying strengths, weaknesses, and recommended improvements. Our solution demonstrated how a centralized, standards-based training platform improved cybersecurity awareness, strengthened incident response capabilities, and increased organizational resiliency against cyber threats