ITC Secure and CyberFirst

This is the third year that ITC Secure will support the National Cyber Security Centre’s CyberFirst programme. CyberFirst aims to develop the UK’s next generation of cyber professionals through student bursaries, courses for 11-17 year olds and competitions.

Every year, I am privileged to meet amazing students with a passion for cyber security and often towards the end of their time with us, run out of ways to challenge them further.

ITC’s aim is to empower CyberFirst students with the key skills they need to be SOC Analysts by the time they leave us. It is important we give them the confidence they need to carry out an investigation, provide recommendations, regardless of the security technology, and are then prepared to send their findings on to the customer. I am proud to say ITC has achieved this with all the students it has worked with.

It doesn’t stop there. To keep things interesting, we like to find innovative ways for the students to experience and learn new skills. Here are a few highlights from past years.

In the first year we looked at ways of automating ticket management. We didn’t have our current ITSM tool ServiceNow and had outgrown our previous one. The challenge was accepted and a few weeks later we had a prototype tool for scraping ticket information and automating multiple tasks.

In the second year we had the CyberFirst students emulate the Stuxnet attack. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a nuclear reactor, so we used an Arduino kit, a Raspberry Pi and a laptop. A fan acted as the uranium centrifuges. The students managed to get the fan to spin up and slow down whilst telling the controller everything was fine.

This year we are looking for students who want to be challenged, who want to learn about cyber security and who want to have some freedom to “hack” stuff. The tools, techniques and procedures they will learn at ITC Secure will ensure that when they complete their studies, they have the necessary skills to start their professional career in cyber security.

We are committed to reviewing and interviewing all applicants that apply through the CyberFirst portal. If you or someone you know would like to find out more, please get in touch with us at: [email protected].