Bumper Registrations For Cyber Security Challenge

The Cyber Security Challenge, launched in July to address the shortage of appropriate IT security skills in the United Kingdom, has seen a huge uptake in registrations.

Registrations are nearing the 4,000 mark as the first stage of competitions gets underway.

The challenge was first mooted at the Infosec Security Show in April and is modeled on the US Cyber Challenge. It has set tasks, such as treasure hunts or network break-ins, for people who want to establish their information security skills. Winners will get prizes, but will also be up for real jobs in the industry.

Skills Creation

“It is about enriching the pool of talent in the UK,” said Judy Baker, Challenge Director, speaking to eWEEK Europe UK back in July. “90 percent of the industry are telling us they cannot recruit the people they need with the necessary skills. We have a problem here getting the right amount of people and the right calibre of people.”

And it seems that the contest is starting to capture the public’s imagination.

“The level of interest in the Challenge just goes to show why we need this type of inspirational and exciting initiative,” said Stewart Room, a Challenge board member and a partner at law firm FieldFisherWaterhouse LLP’s Privacy and Information Law Group.

“One of the reasons we designed the Challenge was as a response to industry feedback that there just aren’t enough high calibre professionals to fill the jobs required to secure the UK’s online presence. In just the last three months we have identified nearly 4,000 potential candidates and we expect many more through the doors.”

Three Competitions

Currently there are three competitions – the SANS and Sophos Treasure Hunt; the QinetiQ Network Defence competition; and the US Department for Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) Digital Forensics Challenge.

The first competition is the QinetiQ Network Defence competition and the SANS and Sophos Treasure Hunt, which are both run in two phases – a virtual competition followed by a face-to-face round for the very best participants who get through the virtual tasks. The virtual phase of the QinetiQ Network Defence Competition is already underway.

The second competition is the virtual phase of the SANS and Sophos Treasure Hunt. This is a less time consuming affair (it takes approximately two hours to complete) and is therefore being run as five groups of 600 participants over five days in October. A second set of virtual competitions for Treasure Hunt will be held during November for those who cannot met the October time frame.

The third competition is a digital forensic challenge. This is written by DC3, the cyber crime unit of department of defence in the US.

Meanwhile, another challenge will be unveiled at Skills London later this week.

Skills London is a show that is geared towards young people aged 14-19 to discover the range of careers, training schemes, educational options and skills opportunities available to them.

The Challenge team will use the show to unveil three new ciphers. This follows the popularity of the first conundrum, released in July. These teaser security puzzles are not part of the official Cyber Security Challenge but are a challenge open for anyone.