Training personnel for the IT industry

GRI 3‑3

Our approach to teaching

One of the key problems facing the industry is a shortage of qualified IT and cybersecurity specialists. According to a 2024 Kaspersky study, most companies experienced at least one cyber incident related to the shortage of qualified specialists over the previous two years.

At the same time, 52% of organizations believe they face internal threats: employees' mistakes, careless actions, or lack of knowledge directly impact the security of business information According to a study conducted by Kaspersky and B2B International among more than 5,000 companies worldwide. .

In 46% of incidents in 2024, employee ignorance or negligence was a contributing factor in the attack.

We believe that personnel training is a continuous process. To ensure specialists are prepared for real challenges, systematic work is needed, from elementary school to advanced training programs for experienced professionals.

That's why Kaspersky is developing a range of educational initiatives that reach audiences ranging from schoolchildren to working IT and information security professionals. We create online courses, conduct hackathons A hackathon is an event where IT specialists work together to develop a solution to a given problem. and competitions, support olympiads, and organize paid internships. We also implement joint educational projects with universities, government agencies, and local professional communities.

Kaspersky Academy and cooperation with universities

To scale up our training projects and make them universally accessible, in 2010 the Company launched Kaspersky Academy — a global platform for information security education.

Between 2022 and 2025, thousands of students from Russia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America received training on the platform.

Today, Kaspersky Academy offers courses, training sessions, and practical learning experiences for a wide range of audiences, from schoolchildren and university students to professionals and non‑technical users. The lecturers and course authors are heads of departments and leading cybersecurity experts at Kaspersky.

During the reporting period, the Company focused on developing accessible and hands‑on educational formats, including:

• As part of Kaspersky Academy, we launched the free online course Cyber Hygiene, which helps users learn the principles of safe use of gadgets and internet services. The course includes 16 video lessons lasting 15–20 minutes
• We launched the Introduction to Cybersecurity. Entry Level course for both IT specialists and non‑technical users
• We created the Who Are You in IT? online course for high school and university students to help them understand professions in IT and information security, and identify a career development path. The program consists of 30 short video lessons up to 25 minutes long and covers more than 20 specializations—in both technical fields and the humanities.

We are also expanding our cooperation with universities. Today, the Company collaborates with more than 200 universities in 45 countries, including more than 70 educational institutions in Russia and CIS countries. We organize joint hackathons and competitions, create research labs and develop joint curricula, provide access to the Company's technologies and expertise, and offer students internships and the opportunity to participate in applied projects.

Kaspersky Academy Alliance

In 2023, Kaspersky launched Kaspersky Academy Alliance, a special partner program that lets universities integrate our courses, technologies, and practices into their educational process. The Kaspersky Academy Alliance has attracted interest from many educational institutions. By the end of 2025, we signed 50 agreements with universities in 16 countries.

In addition to universities, we actively collaborate with government and educational organizations, as well as with local professional communities in the Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America.

For example, in 2025, Kaspersky signed cooperation agreements with the Jordan's Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship (MoDEE) and Tuwaiq Academy, a national educational center in Saudi Arabia that teaches digital technology and programming.

How we cultivate practical skills

Practice is essential when training cybersecurity specialists, which is why competitions, olympiads, and expert communities occupy an important place in our educational ecosystem.

International competitions for cybersecurity experts

We develop the professional community through hands‑on training

Capture the Flag (CTF) is a cybersecurity competition format established in 1993 where participants search for "flags" (special files or data) hidden in vulnerable programs, websites, or hardware devices.

Kaspersky promotes this format through the SAS CFT competition, which consists of two stages: an online qualifying round and an in‑person final, as well as Kaspersky{CTF}, an online competition whose winners also participate in the SAS CTF final.

The final stage is held as part of the Company’s own Security Analyst Summit, an international conference that brings together the best experts from around the world.

What was the result?
CTF competitions give participants an opportunity to improve their skills and share experiences. For the Company, they are a way to cultivate an international community of researchers and help the industry train specialists who can act quickly, collaboratively, and creatively.

In July 2025, Kaspersky collaborated with the Manipal Institute of Technology in Bangalore (MIT Bengaluru) to hold HackSky 2025. This event is a national, pan‑Indian cybersecurity hackathon that brings together young developers and students from across India to solve real‑world problems in data protection and IT security.

During the 48‑hour hackathon, participants worked intensively, developing innovative solutions at the intersection of technology and security. Students on the MIT Tech Wizards team from MIT Bengaluru won by demonstrating the best skills and practical results. The event organizers provided prize money and opportunities for further project support and career development for young cybersecurity talent in India.

Kaspersky partnered with Kazan Digital Week 2025, an international forum where the Company's experts shared practical implementations using the KasperskyOS Cyber Immune architecture, as well as practical examples of using AI for telemetry analysis and incident detection. Our experts also demonstrated real‑life scenarios for protecting digital infrastructure in transport and industry. This format—analyzing applied projects, demonstrating technologies, and engaging in professional discussions—helps promote practical skills among participants, including university students in relevant fields.

We work with gifted students

Another area of our work is support for gifted high school students. In 2024–2025, the Company helped prepare for and hold international cybersecurity olympiads. High school students received training from leading cybersecurity experts from Kaspersky and Central University.

The first International Cybersecurity Olympiad (ICO) was held in June 2025 in Singapore. The Russian team, which included eight 11th‑grade students from Moscow and Kazan, competed against 128 talented students from 25 countries. In the end, the participants from Russia won eight medals, including three golds.

These olympiads cultivate practical skills and professional interest in future specialists. We plan to continue this work in 2026.

Kaspersky Academy expert community

To support not only high school students and university student, but also the academic community, we cultivate the expert community at Kaspersky Academy. We do this through a series of professional events for teachers, researchers, deans and heads of departments covering information security and related disciplines.

Once a quarter, we hold meetings for them, where our specialists share their expertise on hot topics. We also offer regular free two‑ or three‑day training sessions for university faculty, led by our experts.

The Kaspersky Academy expert community has a broad geographic reach, encompassing virtually all of Russia and the CIS. We expanded this project to new countries during the reporting period.

• Events in Russia: In 2024–2025, we held seven community events (with an average of 30–35 participants), as well as four two‑day trainings for faculty and specialists from universities in Russia and the CIS (with an average of about 35 participants).
• International events: In 2025, we held training sessions in Turkey for teachers from 20 universities, CyberDay in Jordan, which brought together representatives from more than 20 universities, educational events for the academic community in Hong Kong (six educational institutions, for example, two‑day workshop for The Hong Kong Polytechnic University students) and Malaysia (nine universities, for example, signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) to support the university’s Information Security Programme). These formats bring together faculty and students, enable discussion of today's cybersecurity challenges, and introduce hands‑on approaches into curricula.

How we develop IT specialists

We are developing the Kaspersky Expert Training portal

Technological advances and legislative changes continually impose new requirements on cybersecurity professionals. As a result, continuous learning is an integral part of the profession. To help specialists update their knowledge and master cutting‑edge tools, we are developing a hands‑on training system on the Kaspersky Expert Training platform.

These self‑paced online courses are developed by leading Kaspersky experts who work daily with hundreds of thousands of malware samples and real‑world incidents. In the training, theory is always reinforced by practice: in virtual labs, students complete assignments and analyze cases based on current threats and scenarios that specialists encounter in their work.

The course materials are designed for both individual cybersecurity specialists and companies that want to train their information security teams (SOC, CERT, etc.). Our courses can benefit research institutes, incident response centers and government organizations.

Skills that can be developed with Kaspersky Expert Training

• secure software development
• threat hunting and threat detection
• incident response and digital forensics

We offer basic courses for all skill levels, as well as advanced courses for experienced experts and professionals. We teach how to use GhidraGhidra is an open‑source software reverse engineering (SRE) framework created and maintained by the National Security Agency Research Directorate. Reference herein to any specific commerical product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, in this Software is used for informational purposes only and does not constitute any association or relationship with NSA or its products., Yara, Suricata, Frida and other security tools.

In 2024–2025, the portal gained three new online courses:

• Windows digital forensics. This course teaches methods for detecting and managing various types of digital evidence within a forensic examination, and offers practice using specialized tools for collecting evidence and analyzing artifacts in Windows.
• Secure software development. The course covers best practices for secure software development and teaches how to effectively integrate them into product development processes.
• Large language models security. A course on the fundamentals of security for large language models (LLMs), using real‑world attacks, defense strategies, and security systems as examples.

In addition to educational courses, we launched the Cyber Pathways website, which explores the wide range of roles available in cybersecurity. The website highlights the specifics of various roles, the required competencies, and possible career paths. Cyber heroes, each representing a key specialization, help users understand information security roles and acquire the necessary skills.

This project is integrated with the Kaspersky Expert Training platform and serves as a convenient starting point for professional development. After completing a career guidance test, visitors can receive personalized educational recommendations, including a selection of appropriate online courses or trainings. This lets visitors choose the right direction and identify a path for consistent growth.

In 2025, together with the Cybersecurity Service Center, we also launched new expert‑product training for specialists working with Kaspersky solutions, such as KATA (Kaspersky Anti‑Targeted Attack), KUMA (Kaspersky Unified Monitoring and Analysis Platform), and EDR (Kaspersky Endpoint Detection and Response). These programs help users gain a deeper understanding of the products' capabilities and learn how to effectively use them to detect threats and automate responses.

We emphasize providing localized training. In 2024, we launched the platform in Russia and published three training courses in Russian: "Windows incident response," "Advanced malware analysis techniques," and "Secure software development." A localized version of the "Suricata for incident response and threat hunting" program was also released at the end of 2025.

The Advanced malware analysis techniques course was the most time‑consuming, taking an average of 74.5 hours to complete. In 2025, the most popular topics were information security monitoring and active threat hunting, as well as Windows incident response.

We also continue to provide free educational programs to international law enforcement organizations. In 2024, 32 INTERPOL officers completed training, and in 2025, training for around 40 AFRIPOL officers began in November and was completed in March 2026.

In 2026–2027, we plan to expand our portfolio of expert programs with training in machine learning and threat intelligence security. We will also partially update existing courses and continue to localize them into Russian.

We offer internship programs

Kaspersky operates SafeBoard, a paid internship program that helps Russian students immerse themselves in the field and work alongside industry experts.

Internships run twice a year, in spring and fall. The selection process includes tests of technical knowledge and practical assignments, and is designed to make the process as transparent and convenient as possible for the candidate. Students residing in Moscow and the Moscow Region must submit an application and complete an online selection process that includes a video interview, testing, and an assignment. Candidates who successfully complete the selection tasks may receive a job offer following interviews with expert teams who are hiring.

To bring candidates into the Company as quickly and conveniently as possible, in 2025 we moved the entire intern selection process into our recruitment system, unifying the hiring process. Now candidates receive all the required tasks at once, and the speed at which they complete the stages largely depends on them.

In the summer of 2025, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the SafeBoard program. Our big celebration brought together nearly 500 people, including via an online broadcast: students, interns, and employees who began their careers at the Company through internships.

We constantly analyze feedback from interns and mentors to improve these efforts, and we continue to invest in onboarding new hires. All interns receive onboarding Onboarding is the process of introducing a new employee/intern to a company and integrating them into the team. materials and training recommendations to help them come up to speed and start working productively.

Results of the SafeBoard program after 10 years: