As reported previously, the Cyber Security Challenge UK centres on a series of online and face-to-face competitions designed by leading security, education and government organisations as a response to the shortage of skilled professionals in the cybersecurity sector.
The challenge was launched at the end of July 2010 and three competitions were immediately opened for registration: the SANS and Sophos Treasure Hunt; the QinetiQ Network Defence competition; and the US Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) Digital Forensics Challenge.
Revealing the scheme's plans for the year ahead, Judy Baker, the scheme's director and Terry Neal, the EMEA director of key sponsor, the SANS Institute, told Infosecurity that the challenge had been a great success over the last year, and is set to greatly expand in the year ahead.
"It's come a long way in a year. There will be more streams next year, thanks to the support of our platinum sponsors, who include PWC, Sophos, HP Labs, Cassidian, the SANS Institute and QinetiQ", said Baker.
As part of the expansion, the challenge's partnership with DC3, the US Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center, continues.
This year, Baker says that the challenge is not only awarding a prize to the best UK entrant in the DC3 digital forensics competition, but also inviting the top competitors to compete at the later stages of the challenge alongside other candidates from different competitions.
The new challenge, she adds, will build significantly on last year's and registrations will be open in May.
The 2011/2012 challenge is being billed as having three main differences, including competitions running more frequently during the year, and hosting a series of one-off competitions to run throughout the year.
There will also be three streams, each focusing on a specific aspect of a cybersecurity professional's role: secure network design, informed defence, and investigate and understand.
Terry Neal said that a growing number of IT security firms are signing up to the challenge as sponsors. Firms, he explained, are now sharing the platinum sponsor's corporate responsibility and helping the challenge to fill our industry's ITsec skills gap.
In this, the second year of the Cyber Security Challenge, he said that the competitions will be open to anyone aged 16 and over, and from any walk of life.