AUGUSTA, GA – Twelve students from Wagener-Salley High School were the first to have an opportunity to crack the code during the National Security Agency (NSA) cyber challenge for middle and high schools hosted at the Georgia Cyber Center on November 18, 2021, sponsored by the CSRA Fort Gordon Alliance. The NSA offers this free-of-charge activity to train local students in basic knowledge of cryptanalysis and forensics. The challenge was created by NSA and is currently deployed and hosted on the Georgia Cyber Range which is located at the Georgia Cyber Center.
Caitlin Courtney, Shanteria Edwards, Haley Franklin, Kayla Johnson, Madison Lawson, Delaina Leres, Chrystine Palau, Emmanuel Pollock, Brandon Pontoon, Emma Poole, Miracle Pough, and Joe Rouse spent the day being introduced to cyber security and engaging in a “capture the flag”-style computer game where they learned about digital forensics and were challenged to preserve, collect, and analyze digital evidence to be able to reconstruct past events of a mock cyber incident.
Presenting this challenge allowed NSA representatives to engage students in cyber and computer science, giving them exposure and knowledge that they may not necessarily receive in the classroom. NSA K-12 Academic Outreach Representative Paula J. said the Aiken County Public School District is the first school district in the CSRA to have this opportunity from the NSA.
“Being in a rural part of our district sometimes limits our students, and my goal is to change that through exploration, exposure, and experience,” said Trina Springs, Career Specialist at Wagener-Salley High School. “This activity challenged students while also exposing them to careers in cyber security, giving our students one more option to think about for their future plans.”
This practical, hands-on challenge allowed students to experience a possible future profession. They heard the background story of a mock cyber-crime where an attacker gained access to a banking system, stole financial files, then deleted all files from the banking system.
Students were tasked with figuring out who performed the attack, when it happened, and other various details that an investigator would need. Split into teams of four students, each group worked through a series of questions trying to advance to the next round to solve the cyber-crime.
“The challenge was a very creative and simple way to expose us to this other world,” stated Wagener-Salley High Junior Miracle Pough. “Working as a team proved beneficial since someone knew something the other didn't and when one of us got frustrated everyone else was still calm and working.”
According to members of the Georgia Cyber Range Team who build and maintain the architecture for which the challenge currently resides, “It was a pleasure to work with and help develop the infrastructure to support this event, especially helping to set it up for future success with the implementation of ‘Infrastructure as Code’ concepts for the backend management and facilitation and seamless access for participants through any modern-day web browser.”
The program is designed to be set up at schools so both middle and high school students can learn more about cyber security and provide more opportunities.
“I was already considering going into cyber security, but I thought it would just be a lot of coding,” Miracle continued. “This exposed me to a different view of the field, made me think in a new way, and confirmed my interest in it.”