TPS Student Qualifies for Elite Final Stage of Cyber Discovery

Congratulations to Year 11 student Jake Davis who progressed to the final stage of the Government’s flagship cyber security training programme, Cyber Discovery. Jake ranked in the top 200 out of over 23,000 initial participants and, as a result, qualified for the final stage of the programme – CyberStart Elite – which was a weekend cyber camp that took place in August at the De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms in London. The cyber camp featured advanced hands-on challenges as well as demos and presentations from industry experts.

Jake said: “On the first day after the introduction, we had three talks about cybersecurity and then took part in one of the games called ‘Hack-a-Bot’. In the evening we participated in the ENIGMA Academy Challenge. The next day, after two more talks, the main event was held, the Capture the Flag, where each team obtained points after finding vulnerabilities. My team came 4th out of 12 other teams. It was really interesting learning about cybersecurity and the potential careers that I could go into and I was taught ways to test the security of my own apps in order to make them secure. I also found more about CyberFirst (https://www.cyberfirst.ncsc.gov.uk) who also provide longer residential courses and bursaries.”

One of Cyber Discovery’s creators, James Lyne, Head of Research and Development at SANS Institute explained that the Elite weekend takes the top students on to the next stage, teaching them what it is actually like to work in cybersecurity. James went on to say that some of these top students had not previously realised they had an aptitude for cyber security.

Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, Margot James, congratulated all the students on making it to the Elite phase of Cyber Discovery and said this was a tremendous achievement.

Sam Hankin, Head of Computing at The Priory School, said: “Congratulations to Jake on his achievement and to the 30 other students who got to round three in the competition as well! The Computing department are really proud of the amount of work and time everyone put in. We are really looking forward to running it again this year and if any TPS student wishes to take part (Y9 and above) this time, please come to B8 to find out more.”