A few weeks ago I wrote about participating in Cyber Defense Competitions as a Red Team member. This weekend I had the opportunity to do so again. This time with a bunch of High School students.
This weekend was the annual IT Olympics event that is put on by Iowa State. The event is an opportunity for the High School students who participate in the IT-Adventures program to get together and compete. There are three competitions:
- Robotics
- Game Design
- Cyber Defense Competition
While the robotics and game design competitions were very interesting, I was there for the CDC. The Red Team didn’t actually get to start attacking until Saturday morning, so I volunteered to show up on Friday and help the students with anything they might need during the setup period. These kids are amazing.
Twenty-fourish teams showed up and we had about 20 Red Team members. In my previous post I mentioned three ways in which you can provide value to the students when participating in this type of event:
- Keep good notes
- Write down remedies
- Attend the debrief
I am happy to say that we accomplished all three goals. Probably the best decision made was to setup a Wiki with pages for each team where we could all keep notes as the contest progressed. These notes then became the outline for our talks with the teams in the debrief.
If you have never had the opportunity to work with kids that are interested in IT, I highly recommend you find a way to do so. It is truly a rewarding experience.
Kevin
Posted by Kevin Riggins 
Infosec Ramblings 