BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4)– With more companies facing security threats, the need for skilled cyber pros is growing. In Colorado, there are more than 10,000 job openings in that industry.
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Now students at the University of Colorado Boulder are harnessing the skills needed to fill those spots– using a video game.
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Business student Marcelo Sanchez signed up for the immersive cyber security class not knowing what to expect.
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“I was expecting a video game. I thought, ‘Here I am, going to play some video games,’” he said.
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That was only half of it.
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Sanchez and other students were using Project Ares, a gamified learning platform that teaches the skills needed to help protect and prevent a variety of cyber attacks.
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Laura Lee is a game designer and executive vice president for Circadence. And now an instructor for the class.
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“Project Ares is like a virtual world, it can look like a city or a bank or an organization and we have built it that way with fake users and a fake internet so it’s a safe place that you can go in and practice cyber,” she said.
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Instead of homework, students take on “missions” or real world examples of attacks already seen in the community.
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“You can read about it all you want and you will fail miserable unless you have seen what a threat looks like you don’t know how to deal with it,” Lee said.
For Sanchez, it was a tool that made learning exciting but also memorable.
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“It turned out to be much more than a video game it turned out to be this platform for learning for applying real skills in cyber security,” he said.
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Circadence the company behind the training platform says you do not have to be part of the class to use Project Ares.
LINK: Circadence
Karen Morfitt
