Can you
figure this cipher out?
(Ronald
Woerner, securityintelligence.com)
It’s a simple cipher and for those of us who have a little… well.. Seasoning to us, it is
easy to figure out. But to a young child
or high school student, it is a challenge.
This is the beauty of these types of problems.
I am in the
last term of my Cyber Security Graduate program and wanted to give an “Atta boy”
to my Professor Ron
Woerner who believes the way to fixing our cyber security issues, is to
teach our youth what this subject is all about and how to identify and
troubleshoot cyber issues. One of the ways he achieves this is to promote Cyber Security competitions in high schools, “Young folks
from around the world are answering the call of “Do you have what it takes?” as
a part of cyber competitions. They’re stepping up to the plate and facing the
challenges of information security, programming, cryptography, and network
reconnaissance and computer forensics”. (Woerner, 2016). As Professor Woerner
states in his article below, these types of competitions and capture the flag (CTF) events are not
new, they were first started in the early 90’s at DEF CON and
have taken off like wild fire across the nation and even the globe as teams of
young adults hone their security skills while trying to best their opponents.
Professor Woerner
wrote a very interesting article titled Cyber
Competitions: Do You Have What It Takes? For Securityintelligence.com that
discusses this very topic and I encourage you to take a look. He isn’t the only one who believes in this educational
path, there are many organizations and teachers throughout America who believe strongly in this. An example of this is the Air Force Association, they sponsor the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber
Education Program which Professor Woerner is involved in.
WHAT IS CYBERPATRIOT?
Cyber Patriot
is the National Youth Cyber Education Program.
At the center of CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Defense
Competition. The competition puts teams of high school and middle school
students in the position of newly hired IT professionals tasked with managing
the network of a small company. In the rounds of competition, teams are given a
set of virtual images that represent operating systems and are tasked with
finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the images and hardening the system
while maintaining critical services in a six hour period. Teams compete for the top placement within
their state and region, and the top teams in the nation earn all-expenses paid
trips to Baltimore, MD for the National Finals Competition where they can earn
national recognition and scholarship money.
(uscyberPatriot.org)
I commend
the men and women who believe so deeply in the security of our public and
private networks. The fact they can work
a full day, and then spend time outside work to provide guidance and support to
the youth of our country is amazing. They
do this knowing the minds they shape today will be the White Hats that protect
our data tomorrow.
If you are
interested in this subject or want to sponsor a team or school, please visit:
Thanks Coach for all your time, your
dedication and love of security. Without
it, I wouldn’t have gotten as far as I have in my graduate career.
Keep up the great work…
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