As artificial intelligence reshapes the cybersecurity landscape, organizations are reassessing how they train, evaluate and retain security professionals. Hack The Box (HTB), a cyber readiness platform for the human-AI cyber workforce, has released findings from a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting, highlighting the potential financial and operational benefits of investing in cybersecurity workforce development.
Forrester Consulting gathered insights from Hack The Box customers in financial services, government, technology and professional services. The research used these customer experiences to model a composite organization employing more than 300 cybersecurity professionals.
Over a three-year period, the composite organization generated $1.2 million in benefits against $285,000 in costs, producing a net present value of $939,000 and a 330% return on investment (ROI). The modeled payback period was less than six months.
The study identified several additional operational and workforce improvements:
- Reduced Breach Exposure: A 50% decrease in escalation probability, attributed to earlier threat detection and reduced attacker dwell times.
- More Effective Incident Response: Incident response teams recorded a 50% improvement in mean time to acknowledge (MTTA) and a 30% improvement in mean time to resolution (MTTR).
- Faster Onboarding: Onboarding efficiency improved by 35%, enabling newly hired security professionals to apply their skills more quickly in operational environments.
- Improved Talent Retention: Cybersecurity workforce attrition declined by 4%, supported by continuous hands-on training and collaborative learning activities.
- Greater Penetration Testing Efficiency: Penetration testing efficiency increased by 50%, allowing security teams to complete assessments more efficiently while reducing the effort required for quality reviews.
- Expanded Cybersecurity Workforce Development: HTB’s structured hands-on training and certification pathways contributed to a 20% annual increase in cybersecurity certifications.
“The question we hear most often is how many cybersecurity jobs AI will replace,” said Haris Pylarinos, CEO and founder of Hack The Box. “The more important question is whether teams are prepared to use AI effectively. AI amplifies the capabilities of the people using it, which is why readiness matters. This study shows what happens when organizations treat readiness as an ongoing discipline, one that’s built, practiced and measured over time, rather than something addressed only when it’s time to renew a certification.”
The head of IT security at a financial services company said, “Dwell time directly correlates with breach cost, and even marginal improvements can prevent high-six-figure impacts in regulated environments.”
The findings arrive as AI accelerates both offensive cyber operations and defensive security capabilities. Although the TEI study primarily assessed quantifiable workforce and operational improvements, the results also emphasize the importance of human expertise in overseeing, validating and securely integrating AI into cybersecurity workflows.
“I think it makes us faster to our response. It makes us better at looking at what the attacker’s doing. We’re fast. We know the right places to look because we know what an attacker would be looking to do. So I’d say we’re better at our job, we’re faster at our job, and we’re more efficient,” said the Head of Global Cyber Incident Response at a professional services firm interviewed for the study.
To help organizations assess the potential financial value of cybersecurity workforce readiness, HTB has introduced an ROI calculator based on the study’s methodology and assumptions. Organizations can enter their own workforce information to estimate potential outcomes. The calculator is available here.
HTB will also host The Economics of Cyber Workforce Readiness, a 30-minute fireside chat featuring HTB CMO Christine Bartlett and guest speaker Forrester Principal Analyst Jess Burn. The discussion will examine the study’s methodology, financial findings and implications for cybersecurity and business leaders. It will also explore the factors behind the modeled 330% ROI and how organizations can interpret the results when evaluating their own workforce development strategies. The webinar can be accessed here.
Beyond the quantified financial outcomes, study participants reported additional organizational advantages associated with HTB, including improved collaboration among security teams, increased visibility into workforce skills and capability gaps, and greater employee engagement in continuous cybersecurity learning.
In separate research, Forrester Research recognized HTB as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Cybersecurity Skills and Training Platforms, Q1 2026. The company received the highest possible scores across 13 evaluation criteria, including agentic AI readiness.
The complete report, The Total Economic Impact of Hack The Box, is available here.
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. This report is part of a broader collection of Forrester resources, including interactive models, frameworks, tools, data, and access to analyst guidance. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.
The Total Economic Impact™ study was commissioned by Hack The Box and conducted by Forrester Consulting. It is based on interviews with seven decision makers with experience using Hack The Box, whose experiences were aggregated into a single composite organization. Financial figures are three-year, risk-adjusted present values. TEI is a methodology developed by Forrester Research.
Hack The Box is the leading cyber readiness platform for the human-AI cyber workforce, helping organizations develop and measure the capabilities of the people and AI agents responsible for modern defense. The platform delivers threat-informed learning paths, real-world labs and live-fire simulations that build and validate offensive, defensive and AI-enabled cyber capabilities. Trusted by the Fortune 500, government agencies, managed security service providers (MSSPs) and Frontier Labs, Hack The Box supports more than 800 enterprise customers and a global community of over 5 million cybersecurity professionals.
For more information, visit hackthebox.com
