Students up security skills at ‘Cyber Boot Camp’

Forty high schools students spent last week receiving hands-on cyber-security training from leading industry professionals during an annual “Cyber Boot Camp” hosted by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.

The event was organized by the Securing Our eCity Foundation, a San Diego non-profit that has been holding the camps each summer since 2010. Students from Del Norte and Westview high schools were among those in attendance.

Taking over a couple of large rooms at General Atomic’ s Poway Business Park headquarters, the students participated in numerous computer training classes, which included the use of FBI-supplied software simulating an outside attack on a “secure” computer server. They toured the GA production floor and viewed a Predator remotely piloted aircraft under construction, met and networked with related industry representatives and celebrated accomplishments at a Friday luncheon, where the Del Norte after-school cyber team received a first-place trophy as the five-county SoCal Cup Challenge competition winners.

Each camp participant received a letterman’s jacket and a lifetime subscription to an online career resource center, said Liz Fraumann, the foundation’s executive director.

Fraumann said General Atomics began hosting the camp three years ago and that the company’s involvement has allowed the students to receive instruction from a “dream team” of industry experts. “They are folks who buy into the vision” of preparing high school students interested in computer careers, she said.

Incoming Del Norte junior Sravani Duggirala said she particularly enjoyed approaching cyber security from the perspective of a potential hacker, rather than a defender. A two-year member of the school’s “CyberAegis” team, Duggirala said she became interested in computing after watching a friend join a similar team while both attended Oak Valley Middle School.

The idea of General Atomics hosting the camp came from Brad Lunn, the company’s managing director of strategic financing. In 2004, one of the servers in his department was hacked; an experience he said made him aware of how little he know about computer security. He said he dedicated himself to learning all he could about cyber-security. Along the way a mutual friend introduced him to Fraumann and the invitation was extended to base the camp in Poway. Lunn now serves as the foundation’s treasurer.