The Governor's Cyber Aces State Championship over the weekend capped a six-month search to discover and develop new cybersecurity experts.
33 of the over 500 total registered participants who showed the highest aptitude during free online courses and competitive events were invited to Saturday's state finals at Delaware Tech’s Terry Campus in Dover.
Governor Jack Markell (D-Delaware) - who has made cybersecurity a priority in his efforts to develop a workforce prepared for the global future partnered with Cyber Aces - a national nonprofit organization whose goal is to discover and develop talent and move them toward to critical and lucrative cybersecurity jobs - to kick off their competition in Delaware last September as one facet of the much-touted Delaware Cyber Initiative.
“Rarely a day goes by that we do not learn of another security breach in retail establishments, universities even government agencies," Markell said "The demand for cyber security workers today is twice that of the overall IT job market."
Cyber Aces Founder Alan Paller said all finalists displayed an aptitude for the work in online testing, but the competition helps discover an elite subset with unique mastery of the more difficult aspects of cybersecurity, primarily once an attack has been successful.
"You have to find these hidden malicious elements that are really deeply buried in your systems. Very very difficult to do."
Although Paller, Department of Homeland Security Task Force on Cybersecurity Co-Chair and SANS Institute Director of Research, cites these jobs as the most in-demand and the most financially rewarding, he also pointed out that there are many other cybersecurity jobs that still pay very well and require similar skills.
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“We don’t want to weed [people] out," said Paller. "Our goal is more allowing this special talent to rise to the top and the people who don’t quite get to the top to also be recognized and get opportunities.”
The competition originally welcomed anyone, but concentrated its recruiting on two groups with IT experience: college students and returning veterans.
Finalist Jeffrey White says he hopes to build on what he learned while serving in the US Navy to develop cybersecurity solutions for businesses as a security architect, but he adds that not everyone may be cut out for the job.
“Security threats are always changing and getting more complicated so you have to stay up with the times," says White, currently emplyed at a Salisbury, Maryland I.T. firm. It’s not just the technology and the knowledge; some of it is experience, some is intuitive.”
It's those ever changing threats, and the lack of proficient experts, that Elaine Starkey, Chief Security Officer at Delaware's Department of Technology and Information, says makes the competition so vital.
"The threats keep increasing day in and day out. We need qualified capable well-trained individuals," Starkey said. "We’re trying to train up the next generation of the cybersecurity workforce to combat these threats."
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Delaware and Cyber Aces partnered with JP Morgan Chase for the championship, which presented finalists with an every-man-for-himself network warfare defense simulation testing their ability to out-think and out-maneuver attackers. Called SANS NetWars, the simulation is the same as the one used by the U.S. military to provide hands on training its officers.
But JP Morgan Chase Vice President of Global Philanthropy Daryl Graham says the event is more than just a charitable cause for the banking giant.
"Most organizations have mobile apps and they have other sorts of things that people utilize for banking," Graham said. "And so you want those things to be very secure, you want people to feel comfortable about utilizing them and you need people to protect that. So [Cyber Aces] is a great opportunity to find good talent to do that."
First place finisher Noah Andrews of Newark joined Kevin Kaminski of Wilmington and Newark's Yingbo Wang, who finished 2nd and 3rd respectively, in sharing $10,000 in scholarships and additional training opportunities.
And while all finalists learned more about careers in cybersecurity, some finalists like teen Khrystian Bates were happy to gain experience from the event that they can carry with them onto the next competition.
“I just think that it’s cool knowing that you can do stuff that other people can’t, that most people can’t," Bates said. "It’s cool coming in and trying to answer these kinds of questions. And they’re really hard.”