There is great opportunity to ensure future computer systems and applications are more securely engineered than they are now by teaching our children from a young age the importance of information security and privacy, and showing them what needs to be done. I often have fantastic conversations with my sons about information security and privacy issues; they always bring wonderful perspectives I never thought about.
Iowa State University provides one great example of taking the initiative to instill understanding of information security in our youth. Next week they will host their annual High School Cyber-Defense Competition.
“The High School Cyber-Defense Competition is open to any High School within Iowa. Students in teams of 3-10 play the role of the Blue Team, or Information Assurance community, under fire from the Red Team, “the hackers” on a network. We provide schools with all equipment, knowledge and skills required to participate.
There is no cost to schools except transportation to Iowa State during the competition (May 18-19).
Who can be involved? Anybody who wants to! We are currently accepting Applications for: Blue Team (The High School Teams), Green Team (The Normal Users) and Red Team (The “Hackers”). To get involved please email natevans@iastate.edu.”
It would be great to see more schools, including elementary and secondary, doing such competitions.
Besides universities, businesses and membership organizations, such as Infragard, ISACA, ISSA and CSI could certainly host and sponsor such events for great benefit to the information security and privacy leaders of the future.
Tags: awareness and training, Cyber-Defense Competition, Information Security, Iowa State University, IT compliance, policies and procedures, privacy, risk management