Students attend CyberFirst Advanced Course

News - Sep 26

As a CyberFirst School, we were able to give a number of students the opportunity to apply for the CyberFirst Advanced Course which took place in Bristol.  

Robin S, Charles J, Daniel B and Bori F in Year 13  were successful in their applications and attended the five-day face-to-face course over the summer holidays.  

Charles stated: “CyberFirst Advanced was an eye-opening and interesting course. For me, it showed that cyber security is a very broad topic and that there are many disciplines within this evermore important sector. The primary purpose of the course was to cover several different areas in cyber security and potential career paths into this field of work. The day that I really enjoyed was encryption. We looked at methods of encryption used today on the internet and looked at many other methods as well. This day, and many others, such as penetration testing, gave me a good idea of what life is like beyond the classroom.” 

“The main structure of the course consists of lectures, carried out by industry professionals from GCHQ and elsewhere, followed by practical work on virtual machines in the computer lab. The four topics covered included digital forensics, encryption and cryptography, open-source intelligence and penetration testing. I learnt skills such as using HxD to find hidden files, using various tools to find information online and using Nmap and Metasploit to find and exploit vulnerabilities in a virtual machine. In the evenings, there were activities such as quizzes and games. The course provides an opportunity to meet new people interested in computer science and make new friends. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in computer science since it is a lot of fun and very educational,” Daniel said.  

Robin adds that the course gave him: “A great insight into the deep world of cybersecurity and taught me things that I could not have learned elsewhere.”