Competition teaches students about cyber security

Published Oct. 21, 2013
By Kendahl Johnson
377th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- In coming weeks, teams of Albuquerque high school students will participate in a national competition designed to help them learn to protect computer system and networks. Their success will depend, in part, on the efficacy of Kirtland and Sandia National Laboratories mentors who have helped teach them.

The competition is called Cyber Patriot, a national cyber-defense event created by the Air Force Association and sponsored primarily by Northrop Grumman, designed to give high school students hands-on exposure to the foundations of cyber security.

Capt. Jason Holzman, the Kirtland JROTC liaison program officer who helps coordinate base resources supporting New Mexico JROTC programs, is working to provide volunteers interested in assisting high schools that would like to field teams for Cyber Patriot.

"Because it's free to field a military team, most of the JROTC instructors want to put forth a team," Holzman said. "It not only benefits the students, but it's low risk and high reward for the programs."

He said the obstacle is that many instructors don't usually have strong knowledge of the computer skills needed to be successful in the competition, so he looks on base for people who work in the information technology field and have the skills to mentor instructors and their teams.

Holzman is also able to help the schools get other support, too, like computer equipment.

"Not every school can afford computers that are solely dedicated to the cyber patriot program," he said. "Our program is designed to leverage existing base programs. For example, 2nd Lt. Austin Sheeley, the liaison to Rio Grande High School, was able to locate a program to provide needed computers for Rio Grande's Cyber Patriot team."

Holzman is working with Sandia to increase participation among schools in the area, with the ultimate goal of seeing Albuquerque become an "Area of Excellence," an official Air Force Association designation awarded to institutions or municipalities that excel in the program and meet certain criteria, such as having a solid core of mentors and strong parental involvement.

Kirtland and Sandia Laboratories are providing 26 mentors. Ted Reed and Christopher Davis, of Sandia's technical staff, are former mentors who now work on training other mentors.

"We mentor the mentors. We are trying to have a level playing field, where every high school with a team is equally competitive," Davis said. "It's been difficult up until now to champion this. We invite anyone in a reputable (information technology) position to learn what it takes to be a mentor and develop their own strategy to take back to a high school."

The biggest commitment from the mentors is traveling to the high schools and teaching the coaches and teams everything they need to know, so Sandia has started providing video teleconferencing to help save on traveling time while still being able support schools throughout New Mexico, including the ones in remote locations.

This is the sixth year of the competition, and Reed, who has been involved in it for the past three years, said the competition gets fiercer every year.

"Sponsors of the competition have continued to add more complex and much harder challenges," he said.

Schools are sent an image file, or a virtual system, that has vulnerabilities built into the system, such as holes in the firewalls, malware, inappropriate media files or accounts with incorrect permissions or privileges. Students then have a few hours to fix the system.

"It's all about cyber hygiene and best practices, and it's entirely defensive-based," Reed said. "We aren't teaching kids to hack systems aggressively, but to be able to fix systems that have been hacked, and secure systems to prevent future hacking. The goal is to make sure students understand what the role of the computer is and how to use the computer for that role."

The competition begins this month and runs through November. Twelve Albuquerque schools are participating, up from four in 2012. Teams that do well earn an all-expenses-paid trip to compete at the national level in Washington D.C. In 2012, teams from West Mesa and La Cueva attended nationals, and the La Cueva High School team placed third.