Cyber Camp Offered At MGCC For Teens

Mountain Gateway Community College is one of the organizations selected to host an AFA (Air Force Association) CyberCamp this summer, Monday through Friday, July 24-28, on the MGCC Clifton Forge campus, for area high school students.

The week-long camp will introduce students to cyber security principles, online safety, cyber ethics, virtual machines and cyber threats, among many other topics.

As an AFA CyberCamp host, MGCC will receive software and a hands-on curriculum kit designed to teach students about cyber safety, cyber ethics, and critical network security skills and tools. Each AFA CyberCamp culminates in a teambased competition that puts the campers in the role of IT administrators tasked with finding and addressing cyber security vulnerabilities in simulated network environments. The local AFA CyberCamp competitions will closely mimic AFA’s annual CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, which will enter its 15th season in October.

MGCC’s AFA Cyber-Camp will be taught by Tamra Lipscomb, MGCC assistant professor and Information Systems Technology program head, and Alex Morrow, MGCC adjunct instructor.

The camp is open to all rising ninth- to 12thgraders in the MGCC service area, which includes Alleghany, Bath, Rockbridge and northern Botetourt counties, as well as the cities of Covington, Lexington and Buena Vista.

Attendees do not have to have any prior knowledge of cyber security to participate. Basic knowledge of computer hardware is helpful but not necessary. Campers will need to bring a lunch each day, with pizza provided the last day, when campers will compete against each other on Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18 competition images.

For more information about CyberPatriot, visit www.uscyberpatriot.org.

To register for Cyber-Camp at MGCC, visit http://www.mgcc.edu/cyberpatriot- campus-2023. For more information, contact Lipscomb at (540) 863-2896 or tlipscomb@ mgcc.edu.