Courtesy of OCPS
Key Points
- Lockheed Martin donated $10,000 to Wekiva High School's CyberPatriot program to support cybersecurity education.
- The CyberPatriot program teaches students how to secure virtual networks and provides foundational IT security skills.
- The grant will purchase five advanced computers able to run virtual machines required for CyberPatriot competitions.
In partnership with the Foundation for Orange County Public Schools’ Teacher Impact Grants program, Lockheed Martin is donating $10,000 to Wekiva High School’s CyberPatriotteam.
CyberPatriot is the Air & Space Forces Association’s cyber education program, which runs “the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, the nation’s largest cyber defense competition that puts high school and middle school students in charge of securing virtual networks,” according to uscyberpatriot.org. Jason Corry, an Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFJROTC) and aerospace science instructor at Wekiva, leads the local high school’s CyberPatriot program.
“It definitely gives them a good foundational background of information technology and how computers need to be secured,” Corry said in a phone interview with The Apopka Chief. “We all grew up, at this point, knowing how to operate a computer, but no one ever teaches you how to secure it and make sure it’s safe, and how to do actual user access control and security patches. So CyberPatriot gives them a beginner look into what it looks like to run a proper network with security features and making sure that people just can’t access your bank account information. Data needs to be protected.”
Participation in the CyberPatriot program requires computers more advanced than those issued by OCPS, which can be a barrier to entry.
“You’ve got to have a computer that can actually run virtual machines, and these virtual machines are anywhere from two gigs to five gigs in size, so it takes a computer with a little bit of horsepower to actually be able to do that,” Corry said, describing a virtual machine as “an operating system that you can run in a virtual environment on your computer, so when you log into your computer and it’s Windows or Mac, you can create another virtual operating system within Windows to continue doing or playing or testing features out.”
As a result, the Lockheed grant will provide the high school with five computers compatible with the demands of the CyberPatriot program.
“Plus, I’m going to try and do certifications, so introduce the kids to IT certifications,” Corry said. “So if they really want to go progress and do this as a career, they’ll kind of get a feel for what it’s like to start having to learn more and study for these exams and get these certifications and go on into the industry in IT security.”
Lockheed previously awarded $10,000 to Wekiva’s AFJROTC program in March, which funded the purchase of two flight simulators.