Capitol College is taking on the task of creating the next generation of cyber defenders. Over the next year Capitol’s Information Assurance department will conduct a number of games and events for community college and high school students to participate in. These events will help students hone their talents in cyber space and learn important skills in defending critical cyber infrastructures.
The first event to take place is strictly for students already studying network security and information assurance in community college and will be held on Saturday, Nov. 16th. This Cyber Laser Tag will consist of 4 teams with 5 participants on each team. The game is played in rounds and each round has a random number of exploitable services. Participants must down all presented services in order to score for each round. However, there is variable difficulty insofar as once one service is down, the time to successfully get the remaining services down shrinks relative to the number of services. Participants must be well coordinated and fast.
Dr. Jason Pittman, creator of this new game, said “More than anything I would like to see participants having fun. This is a game, not a traditional cyber competition”.
Dr. Pittman went on to explain that the game exercises a number of skills that students must master to be productive in the network security industry. Teamwork and time management will be some important keys to winning the game as they are in life. Most importantly participants will have plenty of opportunity to practice offensive cybersecurity skills.
If you are a community college student and would like to sign up to play Cyber Laser Tag at Capitol College on Nov. 16th from 9am-3pm please contact Meghan Young at mayoung@capitol-college.edu or 301-369-2555.