Day 1
We kicked off the first day of the PDX Cyber Camp, with a full house of engaged high school students. Covered online/computer ethics, basics of computers systems, and security threats. Highlight of the day was a fascinating presentation by guest speaker Steve Parker, President of EnergySec, an industry association focused on cyber security of our national electricity infrastructure.
Day 2
Day 2 of our Cyber camp was a big success! I could not be more proud of the student instructors and the amazing quality of the guest speakers that day. Check them out below!
Adam Wick, from Galois (below) discusses a common technique to gain a foothold inside someone’s network. (Don’t do this at home.) And, techniques to defend against it.
Sanchit Karve from Intel Security discusses why it’s so hard to stop malware, and what they are doing about it.
Amelia Kawasaki, student instructor and camp co-founder discusses checksums as a technique to ensure files are not corrupted.
Nes Cohen, Student Instructor and co-founder covers Windows Firewall settings and policies.
Day 3
Day 3 was intense. Many hours of Windows configuration labs led by Charlie Kawasaki, and the students concentrated hard to worked through them with diligence. The real highlights of the day were the guest speakers of course.
Sean Ennis an incident response ninja from RSA research kicked it off, emphasizing the skills and traits needed to combat attackers.
2016 Camp Organizer, Charlie Kawasaki, spent the bulk of the day in the nitty/gritty details of securing windows, including File Permissions for users and groups, backup/restore, event viewer, audit policies, performance monitoring and more. One pretty complicated lab today push us all a little.
Jon Walker, from Lockheed Martin covered the wide range of tools needed by enterprise to secure their networks.
Day 4
Following the daytime class, the students and their families met at a house for a networking-reception with industry experts. It was lively and packed. A special thanks for participation from experts from our sponsors including PacStar, Galois, and CTL, as well as bonus visits from computer security leader Prof. Wu-chang Feng from PSU, Jeff Hekmati, security architect from XPO. Students and families had a chance to discuss careers and follow on opportunities with people in the field. And tons of yummy food from Rock Creek Corner Cafe!
Last day of the camp! We ran a competition where teams of three students each collaborated to create secure OS configurations. It was spirited, and the competition was tight among a few of the top teams. Several of the teams really did well, and one team spent a few nights after hours prepping for the contest. Winners received Raspberry Pi 3 ultimate starter kits, which were well received of course.