A Newbie’s Perspective on Cyber Discovery by Guest Blogger, Alex McCoy
We were so impressed with Alex McCoy’s blog about their experience of Cyber Discovery, we asked if we could reblog it ourselves! Read on to find out what it’s like to work through Cyber Discovery and make it all the way to CyberStart Elite. Here’s what he said…
Alex McCoy, Guest Blogger
‘Cyber Security? Nah. That’s not my thing’ is something I might have said 12 months ago if somebody asked me ‘Why don’t you work in Cyber Security?’. Why would I have said this? Well, the truth is that I hadn’t even considered it.
“In school we’re presented with awesome opportunities but seldom anything truly exciting relating to computing.”
In school we’re presented with awesome opportunities but seldom anything truly exciting relating to computing. I spent my early secondary education never really finding any career path that spoke to me. Just as I had accepted the prospect of sitting in an office all day doing software development, I heard of a new programme that the government was pushing labelled ‘Cyber Discovery’. The programme promised 4 stages: an ‘Assess’ stage aimed at finding students with potential, a ‘Game’ phase which suggested interactive and fun challenges, an ‘Essentials’ phase with a focus on teaching the details and finally: ‘Elite’. The last stage was simply described as ‘in-person camps’ for the best students.
“Cyber Discovery has an unofficial community on Discord, hosting a rich concentration of like-minded students, and a very competitive atmosphere.”
When the ‘Assess’ period started, over the next few days I found myself completing the challenges in my free time, mostly at school. I didn’t find them particularly difficult, and soon I had completed them all. This was the first step to challenging my own perception that cyber security was somehow tremendously difficult to get into.
It was about this time that I discovered that ‘Cyber Discovery’ has an unofficial community on Discord, hosting a rich concentration of like-minded students, and a very competitive atmosphere. A place to come for salvation when a challenge seemed impossible, as well as a (usually) chilled place to hang out.
“As I completed more challenges, I found myself becoming more confident in myself and my own abilities.”
When the second stage ‘Cyberstart Game’ rolled around, I was quite simply stunned at the sheer volume of content on the website. The challenges were categorised into ‘Moonbase’, ‘HQ’ and ‘Forensics’. In each of these categories was a levelled approach that promised higher difficulty on each level. Levels were unlocked by solving enough challenges on the preceding level. In total, I estimate there were over 200 unique challenges to complete on the website, and, given that each one could take several hours to complete depending on the complexity, it’s fair to say that it consumed a lot of my free time. As I completed more challenges, I found myself becoming more confident in myself and my own abilities.
The challenges themselves were designed with the specific goal of encouraging learning, but it was up to the contestant to find out much of the detail. We were given a short ‘field manual’ with some basic instruction, but not much else. I was very impressed with the variety offered by the challenges, such that there was something for everybody to enjoy. As somebody with prior programming experience, it wasn’t particularly surprising that I came to enjoy the programming tasks the most. Particularly, I learned to use Python, which, coming from languages which are strongly typed such as C#, felt very different. Over the last few months, I have learned to love Python almost as much as I like my precious C#.
A new addition to 2018, ‘Forensics’, was far less appealing to me. I was asked to download huge files and work with tools I had never seen or heard of before. To add insult to injury, at a point where I was keen to increase my score, each challenge demanded a disproportionately high time to complete. So, it was begrudgingly that I completed these challenges to be able to claim the respected title of ‘100% completed’.
“I had made it into the mysterious ‘Elite’ selection.”
When the third phase came around, it had rather less fanfare. It was a site which had sections containing content to be learned, then a quiz at the end of each one to consolidate learning. I went through and completed these, notably scoring 1 point lower than required for a ‘distinction’ (42/50) on the final quiz. That was annoying.
Essentials ended and some time passed. I began to get to know the guys over on the Discord community better and awaited to see if I had made it into the mysterious ‘Elite’ selection. Fortunately, the email came, and I had made it. I was very excited when I was given the choice of 3 locations offering a 6-day residential hosting a full SANS course free of charge. Unusually, despite how much I didn’t enjoy doing the forensics part of the ‘Game’ stage, I decided to pick ‘FOR500’ (Windows Digital Forensics) as the course that I was to attend in London.
My experience at ‘Elite’
“Any of my prior illusions that you can do anything on a computer and leave behind no traces have been completely shattered.”
I was a little nervous about the prospect of doing a SANS course centred around forensics at first. Everything about the subject looks intimidating from the outside, from the theory to the tools. Worse still, we were being asked to arrive at 9am which made for awkward planning as I live in the South West. I cannot express in words how grateful I am to the staff at the venue who went above and beyond to make me feel very comfortable. I contacted Cyber Discovery with the issue, and I was offered accommodation for the night prior, free of charge. Historically, I’ve never been able to fully enjoy a residential of any kind as a result of my eating issues, however, the safeguarding staff went to lengths as far as organising regular trips to a local supermarket to ensure that none of the students went without food.
The SANS course itself was an absolute blast. Described by our charismatic instructor ‘Kevin Ripa’ as ‘training by firehose’, we were subjected to a hugely intensive course. Any of my prior illusions that you can do anything on a computer and leave behind no traces have been completely shattered. From a simple 6-day course, my confidence has grown massively (let’s just hope that’s not our good friend the Dunning–Kruger effect). It was great to finally meet the people with whom I had been talking to online for about 6 months and I’m confident that I have made many friendships which will endure the end of this process.
I’m booked into a test in the next few weeks, which, if I pass will officially make me a ‘GIAC Certified Forensic Examiner’. And I’ll have done this before I turn 18. Not bad, eh?
Original blog: https://medium.com/@alexmccoy41/cyber-discovery-a-noobs-perspective-bbb4863f1ebd
