SRESFS Cybersecurity Internship begins their Cryptography class. We started the course with an overview of binary/decimal/ascii, worked a crypto quote form the newspaper, and built our own fully functional Enigmas from 3-d printed parts. Then learned about all the alphabet algorithms. DES, 3DES, AES, TwoFish, Blowfish and more. And even made HASH with our home-grown 5 character hasher spreadsheet.
My son Burns Hudson was a guest speaker in work-life balance in IT, and also provided all the printed parts for the Enigmas.
Who would have thought that a visit to Georgia’s first robotic dairy would turn into a lesson in Cyber Risk Assessment, BIA, BCP, Security Controls, and Operations Planning. Thanks to Steve Weldon, GCC/SRNL Cyber Program Director and “Farmer Mark” Rodgers, third generation dairy farm owner.
After the trip, I asked my DOE sponsored SRESFS interns how they liked the tour and I expected to hear about how cute the baby calf was, and how well organized the workflow was and how they wish they could have tried some of the raw milk. And how much fun they had (which was all true).
To my amazement, they took the entire tour with their cyber security hats on, taking mental notes applying the concepts we learned in the classroom, and made the dozens of observations, which demonstrates that they are already learning to think like mature cyber analysts.
I was amazed to hear comments about safety, recognition of lack of rain, disease, angry bulls, and health regulations as risks that need to be assessed and addressed. The students quizzed the owners how they determined how long they can be down and what to be doing while they’re down to maintain the milk flow. (MTD, RTO and WRT)
The students also realized for the first time that there are numerous components to a continuity plan. You have one for the computers, you have one for the health of the animals, you have one for the lack of rain and such.
Finally, we found it very curious that they said they have more data than they know what to do with and have alarms triggering every 4 and 5 minutes and do not have a way to filter them to identify the important ones that need immediate attention. Can you spell SIEM?
This was a wonderful opportunity of a lifetime. I highly recommend it for everyone. Science, cyber, engineering, environmental science, and more.
Technology Education and Learning Support (TEALS) is a Microsoft Philanthropies program that builds sustainable computer science (CS) programs in high schools. It focuses on serving students excluded from learning CS because of race, gender, or geography. TEALS helps teachers learn to teach CS by pairing them with industry volunteers and proven curricula.
If you volunteer, you will use existing course materials provided by non-profit cyber.org to “train the trainer” for a couple of years, co-teach about 2-5 hours per week, then move to an advisory role, and then champion at a new school if desired. Help educate the next generation of innovators. Teachers, school administrators, parents, students, and tech professionals can join together in the effort.
Are you considering a career change or curious about Cybersecurity?
(ISC)2 (the World’s Leading Cybersecurity Professional Organization) is offering free 1 year enrollment and offering a free introductory certificate, Certified in Cybersecurity. If you do not hold any certs from (ISC)2, you can enroll for free as an (ISC)2 Candidate, and take the self-assessment test (as many times as you want), then take to the self-paced online course (takes about 20 hours), and finally sit for the Certified in Cybersecurity exam for free.
Then it only costs $50 per year to maintain your membership and gain access to lots of other free training and community. This offer ends in September 2024. I recently had 3 sophomore level students complete my “Intro to Cybersecurity” class, the ISC2 online course, and pass the exam.
I have completed my teaching for 22 of the brightest college students I have ever encountered. They have completed the DOE-sponsored SRESFS Cyber Security internship in conjunction with Savannah River National Laboratory, SC-State, and USC-Aiken. They were hand-picked from 14 universities across the USA. Two of my 10 remote students are in Puerto Rico.
In 10 weeks, we completed 4 college-level courses: Intro to Cyber Security, Digital Forensics, Legal and Ethics in Cyber, and Cryptography. We enjoyed visits from 4 USCA Cyber Operations speakers, 6 SRNL and SRNS speakers, an on-site SRNL Cyber capabilities tour, a tour of the Georgia Cyber center, and performed an actual policy audit at a small business in Aiken. Another highlight was presenting what the students learned about cyber risks and controls at the Aiken Rotary Club July meeting.
These students will also leave armed with new career skills including updated resumes, LinkedIn accounts, and completion of the ISC2 Certified in Cyber Security online course. Three students have already taken and passed the ISC2 exam.
This has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my entire career.
