Security | News
College Students Have Chance To Improve Cybersecurity Skills With Competition
The National Cyber
League (NCL) is now offering its lab exercises and online games
to improve students' cybersecurity skills to colleges and universities.
The
nonprofit
NCL will allow college faculty to sign up and permit their students
to participate in its hosted lab exercises, game play and video
tutorials at no
charge. It will also provide instructors with syllabi to help their
students and,
on completion of certain milestones in its programs and exams, it offers
a
Certified Ethical Hacker and Security + certification.
The
NCL
was founded in 2011 with funding from the National Science Foundation and
five other organizations concerned by the dearth of students developing
the necessary
cybersecurity skills to eventually fill a workforce that will be needed
in
coming years to combat the criminal activity, fraud and data breaches
becoming prevalent
in the global economy.
The intention of its founders three years ago
was to provide an ongoing virtual training ground for college students
designed
around industry-recognized performance-based exam objectives and aligned
with
individual and team games. The NCL uses next-generation simulation
environments
to help students develop, practice and validate their cybersecurity
skills.
"Often in class, we cover only details of one
topic at a time," said Ross Bagurdes, a professor at Madison Area Technical College in
Madison,
WI. "In the NCL setting, students have to apply multiple concepts at the
same
time. For the students to have exposure to a lab that pushes them to
make
connections between new concepts is fantastic!"
NCL Co-founder and Commissioner Casey O'Brien
said, "The NCL has worked hard the past three years to differentiate
itself
from the myriad cybersecurity competitions by aligning customized
content
available in virtual learning environments to industry-defined
competencies and
skills."
For more information on NCL's programs, go to nationalcyberleague.org.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.
