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Cyber Security Challenge seeking new IT stars
IT News |
26/07/2010
A new competition has been launched geared at tackling the UK's shortage of skilled IT security professionals.
The Cyber Security Challenge will test the brains of young IT buffs from around the country, with prizes up for grabs for the most successful entrants.
A series of online tests and face-to-face competitions will be used to identify the next generation of talent, with university bursaries and training course places available to the winners.
Participants will be required to make light of highly complex computer code and demonstrate the skills and abilities required for network defence tasks.
The challenge is based upon a similar initiative run in the US, a nation which has also seen demand for IT security professionals exceed demand in recent times.
Baroness Neville-Jones, minister for security, said the pool of available professionals had to grow and the Cyber Security Challenge was an "innovative" way to attract people to take up the profession.
She commented: "Defending all of our interests in cyberspace is a relatively small cadre of talented and highly skilled public sector and private sector cyber security professionals.
"The Cyber Security Challenge UK offers an innovative and exciting way of attracting talented individuals to take up rewarding careers in this field."
Speaking to the BBC, the Open University's Kevin Streater suggested that the current skills shortage may only intensify in the near future.
"We are really suffering quite a major challenge at the moment," he commented.
"A lot of people that came in through to 2000 have moved on, they moved up into different roles and people that came in during the 1960s and 70s are retiring."
Posted by Stephen Wilkinson
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