Harford Community College students participate in the Baltimore Cyber Range Competition

A team of students from Harford Community College participated in the Baltimore Cyber Range (BCR) Security Operations Center/Defensive Operations Exercise Scenarios held at the BCR in Baltimore on November 17. The BCR and the State of Maryland are making this unique one-day cyber range experience available to community college students across the state as part of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulations-sponsored Advanced Cyber Security Training grant.

HCC’s Cyber Team consisted of Matthew Anderson, Sandra Carey, Caryn Mars, William (Will) Mitchell; Victoria Selby, who participated as the Security Operations Center (SOC) Team; and HCC Career Navigator-Cyber and Technology and part-time credit adjunct faculty Frank Mayer, M.S., CISSP, who provided support and served as observer/mentor.

The exercise included sophisticated defensive operations with simulated real world threats. During the daylong exercise, the team went through the steps of incident response including preparation, identification/detection, containment/mitigation, eradication, recovery, and remediation in conjunction with an after action review to apply lessons learned from the simulated events. Each HCC student scored 100% on the operations scenarios.

The team prepared for the event by reviewing training videos on their own and also by meeting to train hands-on in the College’s cyber lab on several occasions. In addition, the HCC Cyber Defense Association, under the leadership of Bailey Jeffers, provided significant support to the team by providing critical insights into the tools needed to be successful at the event.

Bruce Spector, Chairman of the Baltimore Cyber Range, along with other BCR staff, noted how well prepared the HCC team was for the event. Their hard work was evident in their ability to complete both the Web Defacement and SQL Injection scenarios on time and to execute the 68 associated tasks to standard. The participating students will receive a certificate and the BCR staff will follow up with the students to assist them with achieving their goal of a career in cybersecurity.

This is the second time this year that HCC has executed an outstanding advanced training in the BCR. A total of 10 Harford students have completed the training in 2018.

(Article source and image credits:  HCC  /  Photo Caption:  A team of HCC students participated in the Baltimore Cyber Range (BCR) Security Operations Center/Defensive Operations Exercise Scenarios held at the BCR in Baltimore on Nov. 17. (L to R): Sandra Carey; Caryn Mars; HCC Career Navigator-Cyber and Technology and adjunct faculty Frank Mayer, M.S., CISSP; Matthew Anderson; Victoria Selby, Will Mitchell)

~ Written by: Richard Webster, Ace News Today   /   Connect with Richard on Facebook and Twitter