The British Government has today launched a national competition to find the next generation of computer security experts according to the BBC. The competition, which is primarily aimed at teenagers and school-leavers, has prizes that range from bursaries to study at University to full-time employment.
Defending all of our interests in cyberspace is a relatively small cadre of talented and highly skilled public sector and private sector cyber security professionals,” said Baroness Neville-Jones, Minister of Security.
Lady Neville-Jones said the pool of available professionals had to grow and the Cyber Security Challenge was an “innovative” way to attract people to take up the profession.
The UK has fallen behind in recent years in computing expertise which has angered many who remembered the country as the birthplace of the modern computing revolution where programmers were sat in every front room and bedroom on their Sinclair Spectrum, BBC Micros or Commodore 64 only thirty years ago. Since then, other countries have stolen the lead in expertise because they have put much greater emphasis on the appropriate skills during schooling than British governments have done.
A virtual competition takes the form of a treasure hunt that will involve looking for flaws on a dummy website and answering questions about what was found. The challenge will take about two hours to complete with will be run on several dates between September and December.
The face-to-face challenge will see teams taking over a simulated network and defending it against a series of attacks carried out by security professionals.
The winners of these initial competitions will go forward to the UK Masterclass at which they will work with others to defend a different simulated network.
If you fancy yourself as a computer security specialist and would like to enter the competition you can do so here.
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I’m all for such ventures – in fact I think the idea of competition should be used more in all sorts of areas, as used to be common many years ago.
My late father used to say, “Reward research, and people may research for the rest of their lives. Reward success and you may not have to wait that long.”
I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but I do think personal competition and reward (not necessarily financial) is often the very best spur for innovation.
In this case, I welcome the initiative, but think the terms of reference could be expanded a lot.