Cybersecurity competitionU.K. holds amateur cybersecurity challenge to spur interest in field

Published 19 March 2012

For the past several weeks amateur cybersecurity experts have been searchingfor malware, defending against cyberattacks, and raising firewalls as part of Britain’s Cyber Security Challenge

For the past several weeks amateur cybersecurity experts have been searchingfor malware, defending against cyberattacks, and raising firewalls as part of Britain’s Cyber Security Challenge.

The competition, held by British signals intelligence agency GCHQ and Scotland Yard’s e-crimes unit, was designed to spur interest in government cybersecurity positions.

The Washington Post reports that the competition attracted roughly 4,000 participants who spent the last several weeks bolstering susceptible networks, breaking weak codes, and analyzing corrupted hard drives.

According to Pauline Neville-Jones, the former security minister, the U.K. government is struggling to attract enough employees with critical cybersecurity skills.

“The flow of people we have at the moment is wholly inadequate,” Neville-Jones said at the competition’s closing ceremony. She also warned of a growing skills gap “which threatens the economic future of this country.”

The competition comes as part of the government’s broader $1 billion push to strengthen its cyberdefense capabilities. The military recently opened its global cybersecurity operations center and local police created three new regional cybercrime units, but some officials fear there are not enough talented cybersecurity professionals to staff these new units.

Judy Baker, the cybersecurity competition’s organizer, explained that high school guidance counselors are not aware of cybersecurity jobs and few universities offer related degrees.

“The front door into cybersecurity is not clear at all,” she said.

The event ended last Sunday where nineteen year-old Jonathan Millican, a Cambridge University student who is an aspiring computer scientist, was named the winner.