Novice Cybersecurity Students Encounter TracerFIRE: An Experience Report
Academic Article
Overview
Overview
Abstract
Integrating hands-on learning into a competitive cybersecurity exercise is known to be a popular and potentially powerful way to motivate experiential learning in computer and network security (Childers, et al., 2010; Fanelli & O’Connor, 2010; Vigna, et al., 2014; Siami Namin, et al., 2016). In addition to having taken relevant computer science (CS) and/or information technology (IT) classes, competitive cybersecurity exercise participants typically conduct specific preparation activities based on known technical expectations of the exercise. It is also common, in team events, for some portion of the team to have prior experience navigating the rigors of the event. Over the weekend of February 22-23, 2020, eight students from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW), with no prior competitive cybersecurity event experience and little preparation attended their first-ever cybersecurity competition – Tracer FIRE 9. In this paper, we describe that experience and relate how experiential learning made it valuable even for a group with very little previous exposure to cybersecurity-specific education.
