“Attackers solely must be proper as soon as. You, as a defender, must be proper one hundred percent of the time.”
—Cybersecurity Skilled Jim Risler
It’s a well known fashionable trope in motion pictures and TV exhibits. A lone determine, head lined, hunches over a keyboard within the darkness. Instantly you already know you’re taking a look at a hacker doing nefarious issues.
However hacking isn’t all the time fictional. Knowledge breaches are on the rise, costing companies tens of millions. From 2021 to 2023, there was a 72% improve in information breaches, with e-mail being the most typical vector for malware. An information breach is projected to value a median of $4.88 million in 2024. It’s extra essential than ever for firms to upskill their networking groups—and it’s an open job marketplace for these trying to study cybersecurity.
I spoke with the content material creators of the brand new Seize the Flag challenges inside Cisco U.—Jim Risler, Cisco Studying Product Supervisor, overseeing safety course improvement, and Paul Ostrowski, Cisco Technical Training Content material Developer—to get perception into the competitors and why it’s so essential for anybody all for a cybersecurity profession.
What’s a Seize the Flag cybersecurity problem?
First, what does Seize the Flag (CTF) imply? Principally, it’s a sport through which there’s a defensive and an offensive workforce competing to win a flag or flags. It may very well be a sporting occasion, for kids or adults. On this context, Seize the Flag is a cybersecurity problem.
Seize the Flag has lengthy been used within the tech neighborhood for folks to observe their cybersecurity expertise. The world’s greatest occasion is Def Con CTF, happening in Las Vegas yearly. Seize the Flag challenges are additionally utilized by large firms and universities to coach folks in cybersecurity.
It’s often a contest between groups: the offense (crimson workforce) and the protection (blue workforce); or, if either side are labored concurrently, a purple workforce. It may very well be in particular person, on-line, on a multi-person workforce, or with particular person opponents.
How can I take part in a Cisco U. Seize the Flag problem?
You might be wherever on the planet to take part within the Cisco U. Seize the Flag on-line challenges. Participation is particular person. Right here’s the way to get began.
Passing one CTF problem plus the Cisco Networking Academy course will earn you the Cisco Certificates in Moral Hacking.
How does a Cisco U. Seize the Flag problem work?
Each problem will work a bit in another way. The primary challenges (working by means of 2/11/2025) don’t separate you into blue or crimson groups. “In Cisco U. the 2 CTFs we now have now are extra blue workforce since you’re doing investigation response, and testing your talents to detect assaults,” notes Ostrowski. “You’re functioning as an investigator in each missions.”
Now that Cisco U. has a Challenges characteristic contained in the platform, there will likely be new Seize the Flag on-line cybersecurity challenges each quarter. Count on a wide range of CTFs, together with crimson team-focused ones, the place you infiltrate a community and expose its vulnerabilities.
Every problem consists of a lot of steps- presently 11 steps– you should full one after the other to move. Step one guides you thru organising your lab atmosphere, which you’ll want for the rest of the problem.
What rating do you must move a Cisco U. CTF problem?
Is there a minimal rating you must move? In no way.
“The unique concept was to make this rating out of 100, however now it’s simply move or fail,” notes Ostrowski. “So if you happen to get to Step 11 and accurately reply it, you’ve handed.”
Hints can be found all through. You’ll get factors taken away if you happen to use a touch, nevertheless it’s structured so that you’ll move no matter whether or not you reply every little thing accurately.
“There’s an previous know-how factor geeks like myself say,” says Risler. “RTFM. Learn the Pleasant guide. It’s all in there for you.” His hints will let you know the place to look if you happen to missed a clue.
Do you want further coaching previous to taking the Cisco Networking Academy course?
“Technically you don’t want further coaching, however it’s best to perceive networking,” Risler advises. “Cisco Networking Academy has some fundamentals of networking programs to present you a superb basis.”
Constructing a powerful basis in networking is a crucialHe notes that as an teacher at a college, he sees faculty college students who lack this basis leaping into extra advanced cybersecurity coaching anyway after which struggling to catch up. “Their professors aren’t geeks like me, they…simply inform the youngsters to check stuff of their guide and the following factor you already know…the college students are like, ‘Why is IP addressing essential?’ If you don’t perceive that, you don’t perceive networking.” And you gained’t achieve success in cybersecurity.
Who ought to do Cisco U. Seize the Flag on-line?
Anybody all for cybersecurity ought to hop onto the CTF problem to each study and check expertise. “The target of CTF is to bridge the hole between entry-level and execs in cybersecurity, offering hands-on studying with real-world data, expertise, and skills,” says Risler. “Numerous firms say they’ve this hole. They could have booked cybersecurity schooling, however the packages don’t do labs or hands-on, or it’s all on a Home windows machine. In our CTF, they undergo the moral hacker course, and so they’re taught on a DNS (area title system)/lab atmosphere, after which that data and expertise are utilized in a close to real-world setting.”
What Cisco U. coaching ought to I take after Seize the Flag?
So that you’ve executed each CTF challenges in Cisco U. Congratulations! What do you do subsequent, moreover await our subsequent problem to do extra?
There are solely two paths to pursue in safety, in response to Risler. “I actually suppose we overcomplicate it,” he says. “There’s an engineering mindset: constructing the structure and securing the community. Or there’s defending the community, which is any individual who seems for threats on the community.”
For those who’re into defending the community, the following areas you’ll be able to examine are:
Between Cisco U. and Cisco Networking Academy, you may get all of the schooling you want for any security-related profession. Cisco is a cybersecurity chief, with protecting merchandise like Cisco Umbrella and the intelligence heart, Talos, which analyzes 4 TB of menace information day-after-day. “At Cisco we’re educating you the way cyberattacks are profitable,” says Risler. “You’re studying how they’re capable of get a foothold in someplace after which why did the goal assault work? Why did the malware assault on the British healthcare system work? How may you defend towards that?” Cisco is uniquely positioned to take a look at cyberattacks from a purple perspective, seeing what’s coming subsequent and stopping what’s coming now—and move all that data onto learners.
Risler recommends:
The Sandworm by Andy Greenberg. The true story of probably the most devastating act of cyberwarfare in historical past and the determined hunt to determine and monitor the elite Russian brokers behind it. It’s an important learn for anybody all for cybersecurity and in addition a incredible guide membership selection.
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