Day 1 – CyberCamp 2016

Hello! Today, was an exciting day for the campers. To start the camp, the campers were welcomed by an FBI agent and the President of the Charlotte InfraGard. Shortly after getting welcomed the students got to know their counselors and junior counselors. The counselors introduced themselves and where they work. Succeeding “Meet the Counselors,” where the campers met with the team of volunteers that would be helping them throughout this week, the twenty-nine campers were introduced to computer hardware. The underlying goal of this, in cohesion with the following activity, was to familiarize these learners with the hardware that they would be operating on. In our arsenal, we had access to several retired laptop computers and desktop computers that had been formatted (an important security precaution in order to preserve the privacy of the previous end-user). We then gave the campers access to all of the screwdriver type tools that they would need, and let them choose a computer in order to disassemble, and really learn what makes them tick.

After the computer hardware teardown the students heard from Doris Gardner. Ms. Gardner presented and spoke to the campers about Cyber career opportunities, critical infrastructures, and the importance of Infragard. Ms. Gardner placed emphasis about the critical infrastructures that are imperative to the advancement and continuity of our modern life. She also defined what Malware stood for, Malicious Software, and gave the campers the reasons why Cyber Career opportunities are increasing. Denis McDuff, CEO of eBrowselow, spoke to the campers about the business behind Software Development. He explained the number of the Software Developers in the United States compared to other countries and stressed that the pool of Software Developers is becoming larger and larger. Mr. McDuff talked about the secrets of getting hired, and the secrets of job success. Mr. McDuff also shared some of his personal stories, as he grew up in the emerging technology sector.

Later on in the day we learned how to use a Caesar Cipheras demonstrated by an FBI agent. A Caesar Cipher is a way of decryption method of plain text. A Caesar Cipher will shift letters in order to unveil a secret message. It is a very useful method to decrypt hidden messages in plain text. Today, the students also learned how to use many different tools including Nmap. Nmap is a tool that allows the students to view the weakness’ of other computers on the same network. They practiced scanning each other’s computers to view what ports were open. Learning this information they can further can access to the computer being scanned.