At the end of June more than 50 local middle and high school students learned about password cracking, social engineering, web scraping and more as they practiced cybersecurity principals through hands-on activities during UNLV’s GenCyber Camp.

Participants heard from industry experts including representatives from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and worked with their teams on projects related to artificial intelligence, cryptography, and Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions. Fun team-building activities were also included such as lunchtime karaoke, physical challenges, and timed games where team members earned points for prizes.
 
Their new skills were put to the ultimate test on the last day of camp when the teams with the most points were tasked with solving the challenge of an escape room. Designed and created by students from the UNLV College of Engineering, the UNLV Cyber Clinic, Layer Zero and WiCyS (Women in Cybersecurity), the escape room featured multiple spaces of a fictitious company, LightCorp, that students had to navigate through as they attempted a make-believe hostage rescue. From cracking computer pass codes, creating fake employee ID badges, disabling security cameras, and outsmarting a room of laser traps, students used all of the knowledge and experience they had gained during camp to secure the hostage. The team who successfully completed the challenge in the fastest time earned themselves free passes to DEF CON, the hacker convention held annually in Las Vegas.

With more than 550,000 cyber-related jobs open across the nation, according to Cyberseek.com, creating awareness of, and interest in, cybersecurity is paramount. Programs like UNLV’s GenCyber Camp are helping to fill that gap and train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
 
The GenCyber Camp has been taking place each summer at UNLV since 2018 and is free to participants thanks to a grant from the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goals are to teach pre-college students how to detect cybercrime, protect critical cyber infrastructure, and how to practice safe online behavior.

This summer’s camp took place June 24 through June 28 in UNLV’s new Advanced Engineering Building.