TOMS RIVER, NJ — Ocean County College held two inaugural sessions of its CyberSafe Cybersecurity Camp in late August, with great success. A group of 24 students from Brick Memorial High School traveled to campus for a morning workshop, held in-person, while a afternoon session was conducted virtually for 20 other Ocean County middle and high school students who registered individually.

“The purpose of the camp,”said OCC Computer Science Lecturer Jonathan Weiss, “was to expose the students to cybersecurity principles, disciplines, tools, and job opportunities. It emphasized discussion of security concepts, followed by hands-on exercises and training in the use of industry standard tools.

“The morning students were provided specially constructed laptops, which ran the software necessary for them to follow along with the various exercises and activities,”Weiss added. “The afternoon students were given instructions on how to load the necessary software on their own laptops.”

The first day of the camp, Weiss explained, the students introduced themselves, learned the ethical considerations and responsibilities associated with cybersecurity and its toolsets, and received a tour of the provided cybersecurity workstation environment.

On day two, campers learned about online safety, and how to protect their personal devices and cell phones. They were then taught how to administer user accounts and security permissions across both Windows and Linux computers.

The following day of the camp was devoted to codes and cryptography. The campers “were broken into teams and given the information necessary to crack three simple ciphers,”Weiss stated. “They also ran software used by security professionals and ethical hackers to break bad passwords using a dictionary of commonly used words. Finally, they heard stories about the Enigma Machine, Hedy Lamarr, and Navajo Code Talkers.”

On day four, the students learned about how firewalls work to secure networks, and configured a firewall rule to block their access to Google. They learned how to scan a network to find vulnerable services, and finished the day drawing a secure network.

And, on the final day, said Weiss, “campers saw a video from Representative Andy Kim introducing the Congressional Application Challenge and were given tips on developing a winning computer application. They then got to look at bad programming practices that lead to security vulnerabilities, and they figured out how to make bad programs break. The camp concluded with a discussion of cybersecurity careers and the curriculum options at OCC that support them.”

Via anonymous exit questionnaires, many campers stated that they found the camp very useful and educational, and several plan to learn more about cybersecurity and the Congressional Application Challenge sponsored by Representative

Kim’s office and the College.

Student responses to the camp were, in fact, unanimously positive. “I enjoyed getting to use Linux, Kali, and MetaSploitable,”said one student. “It was an eye-opening experience and really enjoyable. I really don’t have any complaints. Everything made sense and had made me consider a cybersecurity job. You guys did a great job!”

“I liked the hands-on coding and learning how to hack and administer things,”another remarked.

One camper wrote: “Things I liked: (1) learning some code, (2) technology careers explanation, (3) learning how to make a secure network, (4) learning how to communicate with my peers. Conclusion: very fun camp. I enjoyed it a lot.”

Another stated: “I thought this week of cybersecurity camp was very informative. Coming into this week, I wasn’t certain what to expect or if I would like it. By the end of the week, I really enjoyed it, and I learned a lot more about the importance of cybersecurity. What I liked most about this cybersecurity camp was the coding. I liked learning more new commands. Although cybersecurity may not be the path I want to take in my life, I learned a lot about cybersecurity that can help further my education. I will continue learning more about cybersecurity, and the field of technology. I think that

OCC should continue offering camps for students who are seeking more knowledge about cybersecurity.”

Ocean County College hopes to make the Cybersecurity Camp a summer tradition to attract promising high school students to this exciting and growing field!