Everyone from MIT to the DoD have agreed that teaching cyber security using cyber challenges, where groups of students attack or defend a live network, has proven to be an incredibly effective educational tactic. Unfortunately, current cyber challenge tools also suffer from being very hard to configure, and/or very expensive, and/or limited to certain audiences (e.g. the military), which makes them inaccessible to high schools, colleges, and smaller organizations. The Open Cyber Challenge Platform aims to help fix this by providing a free, open-source, cyber challenge software platform that is reasonable in terms of cost of required hardware and required technical installation/maintenance expertise, as well as easily extensible to allow the vast open source community to provide additional modules that reflect new challenges and scenarios. If you're interested in the future of cyber-security education, or simply just want to learn about a new potential training tool, come check out the OCCP.
Linda C. Butler is a computer science student currently interning at the University of Rhode Island's Digital Forensics and Cyber Security Program. Past activities include an internship in the NASA Engineering department at Kennedy Space Center, a backpacking trip through New Zealand, and performing at a renaissance faire. She's an OWASP member and past DEFCON Attendee, and finds the interaction between security, privacy, and society an endlessly fascinating area of study.