CyberSecurityChallenge

[begood]

Q: Who is behind the Cyber Security Challenge

A: The Challenge is bringing together leading experts in cyber security from across the UK and beyond. They are working together to design and develop a series of challenges/competitions that will test the nation’s cyber security skills. This group is led by a management team consisting of professional bodies, government departments, private industry, and public sector organisations. A full list of the participants can be found at about us.

Q: If Cyber Security Challenge UK Ltd is a private company, is this a money-making initiative?

A: No. The Challenge is a not for profit company and many leading people are giving us their time and donating facilities because they understand the value of our work. It is designed to help create an environment where we can grow and improve the quality of the UK pool of cyber security talent. To get there we need to take some important project management and administrative steps and we have established a legal entity to manage what is a complex small business.

Q: Are you collaborating with the US given it has run cyber challenges in the past?

A: Yes, this is a valuable partnership. Those running the US Challenge have been very supportive. The Sans Institute is a founder sponsor of Cyber Security Challenge UK and both they and The Cyber Crime Unit from the US Department of Defense have offered to share competition material with us.

Q: Why are you launching now when you are not open to candidates?

A: We decided to announce the challenge first to the information security community. Whilst we are already deep into the planning and design of the games, we want to encourage as many organisations and individuals from the sector as possible to participate and support the Challenge in a variety of ways.

Q: When will you be accepting candidates?

A: We have yet to set a date because we need to finish development of the competitions/games. Things are moving forward rapidly and we fully anticipate launching to candidates in Autumn 2010.

Q: Why did you participate in a survey?

A: We wanted to evidence the reasons why the Challenge is needed and the results speak for themselves. 90% have difficulty in recruiting and nearly 60% expect there to be more jobs in cyber security in the next 5 years. There is an increasing need for cyber security professionals and a current deficiency. The survey was sponsored by Sans who collected some fascinating material for a Sans Booklet on the Top 20 Coolest Jobs in Cyber Security. We also got a lot of useful data on cyber security jobs to help inform people of the variety and interest of jobs in the profession. The results of the survey, including some quotes about what people said about their jobs is on our website.

Q: What will the competitions look like and who will run them?

A: The competitions will be a series of online games that will test candidates’ cyber security abilities. Whilst the focus of each competition is yet to be confirmed, the first three are most likely to be focused on defending networks, identifying website code vulnerabilities, and digital forensics. These will all be virtual tasks that anyone can access online, allowing any number of competitors to enter from any computer. Each competition will follow a different format to offer true variety. Some may be designed for teams, others for individuals.

Q: Will there be more than one winner?

A: We have yet to determine whether we will bring the finalists from all competitions together for a single face to face workshop and final or whether we will run separate workshops and finals for each competition. There will be a number of winners and prizes will include opportunities to further careers for example through private sector training courses, internships in leading companies and scholarships.

Q: Can you give me more detail on what candidates will be asked to do?

A: They will be asked to solve the sort of problems cyber security professionals encounter every day. This may range from defending technology networks from attack, to identifying malicious code in websites. At stage two it is likely that candidates will need to demonstrate technical, interpersonal, and decision making skills. Initially our competitions will not test all the skills business and Government need and we expect to grow over time to meet the variety of the need. As our plans solidify we will publish more information.

Q: What happens to successful candidates that show promise? Is there a second round?

A: Those that succeed in the first set of competitions will go on to round two which will comprise face to face challenges and some training and development. These plans are also in development but we have received some fantastic creative ideas from companies interested in working on that part of the Challenge. More about this will be revealed when we launch to competitors.

http://cybersecuritychallenge.org.uk/

Edited April 27, 2010 by begood

[sosetutza]

Cei naiba e asta?

[begood]

sorry about that.

imi facea fi?e forumul si a trebuit sa editez.

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