Ten cadets from the Cyber Leadership Development Program (CLDP) attended cyber security training in San Francisco, CA during Spring Break. Gifted by the SANS Institute and margin of excellence funds, the cadets attended six-days of training focused on both offensive and defensive cyber operations. The training is like training offered at the Army Cyber School and taught by some of the same instructors. Cadets will use what they learned to help win events such as the annual Cyber Defense Exercise (CDX) and various cyber security capture the flag competitions (CTFs). Cadets attending their first SANS training took "SEC 504: Hacker Tools, Techniques, Exploits, and Incident Handling" to learn attacker's tactics and strategies. This knowledge prepares cadets to better defend networks and systems from attacks while also begin to understand penetration testing and offensive cyber operations.
The more experienced cadets either took "SEC 560: Network Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking" to gain advanced understanding of offensive cyber operations or "SEC508: Advanced Digital Forensics, Incident Response, and Threat Hunting" to gain advanced understanding of defensive cyber operations. Industry professionals taught both courses to include former military and NSA cyber operators. The real-world experience passed down from the instructors in combination with the course curriculum will help develop our future leaders and ensure continued dominance in the cyber domain.