USPS Publication Number 16300
T h is C om mu n it y Ne w sp ap er is a publ ic at ion of Es c a mbi a-S a nt a R os a B a r A ss o c i at ion
Se r v i ng t he Fi r st Jud icia l Ci rcu it Section A, Page 1
Vol. 22, No. 39
V isit T he S ummation W eekly O nline : SummationWeekly.com
September 28, 2022
1 Section, 8 Pages
EXERCISE , EXERCISE , EXERCISE!
GBSI TO HOST 2022 ITEN CYBER RANGE EXERCISE
by Morgan Cole
I
n conjunction with this year’s ITEN Wired Summit, Global Business Solutions, Inc. (GBSI) will host a competitive Cyber Range Exercise for local students to assess technical skills, practice their craft in the field of IT and experience a day in the life of working in the GBSI Security Operations Center (SOC).
Participants will face off in this year’s Cyber Range Exercise to put their cybersecurity skills and knowledge to the ultimate test. GBSI will open their SOC and Cyber Range to area high school and college students who are interested in or currently pursuing a career in cybersecurity. For this cyber range exercise, local students will have a chance to compete against one another for prizes and recognition at the annual ITEN Wired Summit. “GBSI is working with area schools to identify and register teams for the event and we anticipate having four schools represented in the competition this year,” GBSI Senior Prog ram Director, James Morris said. The Cyber Range Exercise will be hosted by GBSI on Saturday, October 1 from 9 am to 3 pm at the GBSI Security Operations Center
located at 316 S. Baylen St., Suite 500 in downtown Pensacola. The primary goal of this exercise is to provide exposure and hands-on experience to students pursuing careers in cybersecurity (CS) using skill-based scenarios. The scenarios are presented as challenges, games, or competitions with live scoring and leaderboards to enhance the experience but at the basic level the exercises are designed to make the players use the knowledge, skills and abilities they have gained through training they’ve received in school along with their personal IT experience. “Competitors will gain an in-depth understanding of the CS landscape while gaining familiarity with different roles and duties of the varied occupations within the f ield,” Morris
By holding this event in our Security Operations Center (SOC), the students will have an immersive experience relative to the day-to-day life of a cybersecurity professional.” explained. “By holding this event in our Security Operations Center (SOC), the students will have an immersive experience relative to the day-to-day life of a cybersecurity professional.” Email phishing, external threat vectors (like viruses, malware, spyware, ransomware), security best practices and security policy implementation are just a handful of some of the skills, knowledge and abilities that can be assessed and enhanced by utilizing GBSI’s Cyber Range. “The exercise itself will require students to complete activities and tasks to reach objectives outlined in the selected scenario. Skills exercised will range from
the most basic (logging in to a virtual machine) to more advanced requirements which could include things like vulnerability identif ication and mitigation or security policy implementation,” Morris explained. “Our Cyber Range has countless scenarios ranging from beginner to advanced and the goal for this event is to identify or create a scenario that is challenging but achievable for each of the participants within the time allotted.” The event will kick off with a tour of the GBSI facility and a full introduction to the Cyber Range, which is where the competitive exercise will take place. The exercise will be time-boxed and feature a
full range of cybersecurity topics to test the knowledge, technical skills and abilities of each participant. At the end of the competition, the most skilled contestants will ascend to the top of the leaderboard and the results from the competition will be revealed. “The leaderboard internal to our Cyber Range, which can be monitored by the competitors, will keep score and the team with the highest score at the end of the day, will be declared the victor for this year’s event,” Morris said. Competition winners who receive top honors will be awarded and recognized by GBSI President, Chris Middleton during the ITEN Wired Summit on October 6 at 11 am at the Pensacola Beach Hilton hotel. For more information on the ITEN WIRED student cyber range exercise, visit itenwired.com. •
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