Cyberthon 2018

Cyberthon has become the Gulf Coast’s largest Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) and Cybersecurity event of the year. This weekend event encourages and promotes a community culture of cyber awareness and collaboration between Government, industry and academia, bring together community leaders, cyber experts and a cadre of cybercompetitors from local schools to witness and participate in real‐world cyber operations and defense methods.

This weekend event is sponsored by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA), a non-profit organization dedicated to providing an ethical forum for increasing knowledge, exchanging information and promoting cybersecurity awareness, education and related STEM initiatives in our community.

Cyberthon 2018 will be held at the Gulf Power Co.’s Douglas L. McCrary Training Center on Pine Forest Road in Pensacola, FL March 9-11, 2018.

Cyberthon has captured the interest of the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In partnership with Gulf Power and Southern Company, INL, will provide students in Northwest Florida an unprecedented cybersecurity awareness and learning opportunity themed on Industrial Control Systems (ICS).

During this year’s three-day event, competitors from local high schools, postsecondary institutions and the US Navy will work through exploit labs that replicate a real-world scenario where a controller is monitoring and controlling devices deployed in the field. The labs will walk through various exercises to demonstrate how an attacker can gather information from a variety of sources, use that information to identify vulnerabilities or gather additional sensitive information, interrupt/control the process, and finally how proactive measures can prevent attacks. On the final day, participating teams will test their knowledge gained from the training and exploit demonstration using the Facebook Capture the Flag (CTF) gaming challenge.