The first edition of OliCyber, the first cybersecurity training and competition program entirely dedicated to secondary school students, will end tomorrow, June 14, 2021, with the national final.
The first edition of OliCyber, the first cybersecurity training and competition program entirely dedicated to secondary school students, will end tomorrow 14 June 2021 with the national final.
The initiative, organized by the Cini National Cybersecurity Laboratory (National Interuniversity Consortium for IT) involved 185 secondary schools, allowing 1107 aspiring ethical hackers to approach the field of IT security. Through targeted training activities and a unique path of coaching with the country’s leading experts, the participants were able to perfect their skills in an increasingly central area in our daily life and in the job market.
The awards will be held on Monday 14 June at 2.30 pm, in the presence of the authorities, the management of the National Cybersecurity Laboratory and the sponsors, Autostrade per l’Italia as platinum and Tiesse as gold, who supported and made the initiative possible. The ceremony will be streamed on YouTube.
The program made use of the experience gained over years of successful editions of CyberChallenge.IT, the school for the ethical hackers of the future, and saw the young students engaged in about fifty hours of advanced training over a period of 8 weeks. Among others, the main topics at the center of the lessons concerned cryptography, reverse engineering, network security and infrastructure security, covering the most relevant areas in the complex cybersecurity sector.
Each skill acquired during the period of the lessons will be useful during the final competition, next Saturday, which will test the students who will be able to challenge each other in special virtual arenas, and will be aimed at identifying the Italian Olympic champions of cyber security. To achieve this result, the Laboratory involved more than 40 instructors, from 10 of the best Italian Capture-The-Flag teams, among the former participants of CyberChallenge.IT and among the members of the Italian National Cyberdefender – TeamItaly -, who organized 130 exercises, as well as holding courses for learners.
“The goal of this path will be to create greater involvement among the young talents of CyberChallenge.IT, where the participants are between 16 and 23 years old, and those even younger in OliCyber”, commented the coordinator of the project, Gaspare Ferraro : “We want schoolgirls and students to have the opportunity to understand what lies behind cybersecurity, a world that moves crucial infrastructures and services for the entire country, so that they understand what they can achieve with the sheer force of determination.”