CYBER 9/12

Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge

It is one thing to learn about cyber security and security policies. But it is another thing to really experience the pressure and the challenge. In a Cyber Crisis simulation, you will get to experience exactly that. You will be given a crisis situation that you need to solve in a team. You will need to work out a strategy to tackle the problem and then present and justify it in front of a jury. But don't worry, we, as Cyber Group, prepare our teams very well. Currently, we are sending teams to both the “Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge” in Geneva and in New York. These are annual cyber policy competitions for students worldwide to compete in developing national security policy recommendations tackling a fictional cyber incident.

"The 9/12 challenge is getting more competitive every year - systematic and thorough preparation is increasingly paramount for doing well. The Cyber Group at ETH provides you with that - and on top, with great opportunities to network"

- Dr Myriam Dunn Cavelty, Senior Lecturer and Deputy for Research and Teaching, ETH Center for Security Studies

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Participants

Do you wonder what happens at an emergency government meeting? Are you interested in discussing and learning about the state of the art cyber security topics? Do you want to test your decision-making skills under pressure? Then a cyber crisis simulation competition is exactly what you are looking for! We give training sessions for all our participants on a vast spectrum of topics.

Mini Challenge

Your Turn!

Rome and Frankfurt airport have lost all communication with incoming airplanes.

You are the advisor to the prime minister of France. Which of the following options would you consider as being part of an appropriate immediate response?

  1. Call HR and request high alert issued to all European airports and immediate status of system vulnerability. An attack on the air traffic control in any member state of the EU is a matter of security for all member states of the EU.
  2. Organize a ZOOM call with CTOs of concerned and top 3 French airports and their suppliers for immediate technical support
  3. Request HR to call for immediate NATO crisis management and demand clear data on actors
  4. Alert the military and offer help to Germany and France to guide «stranded» airplanes to safe airports

Timeline

Training and Challenge

  1. January
    Kick-Off Meeting: We explain the challenge in detail, as well as the training and everything else you might want to know.
  2. January
    Registration for the Cyber 9/12 Training
  3. February
    First Training with Cyber Group
  4. 4 Weeks prior to competition
    Release of Intelligence Report 1. Write a policy brief about the given crisis situation within two weeks.
  5. 2 Weeks prior the competition
    Policy Brief Deadline: Submit the policy brief.
  6. 4 April (Competition Day 1, Round 1)
    Present the decision document in front of judges, and defend it in a Q&A session. TestRelease of Intellgence Report 2 with escalation.

Training

Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge Training

Take part in our training and information sessions, and we will provide you with everything you need to succeed! For our training, we invite lecturers from academia, industry and public institutions. Our training starts each year in February and takes place each week for up to 4 hours, until the competition day. It aims to prepare you in 4 different areas:

Technical

We provide you with an introduction to cyber security and to the technical parts of analysing a cyber crisis.

Policy

In this part, we aim to bring in the political aspect of cyber security, which is a big part of the crisis challenges. We introduce all the important actors and policies that are relevant when dealing with a cyber incident.

Cyber in practice

In reality there are often more elements involved in cyber incidents, than only the technical and political aspects. We introduce you to topics such as PR and current cyber strategies.

Soft skills

Although the main topic of the challenge is cyber security, we will also provide you with training in more generally applicable skills, such as communication, time management and presentation.

Challenge Q&A

  • Do I need to have a team?
    No, we will team you up after you sign up for our training, but you can of course bring your friends with you :)
  • Do I need a technical background in cyber security to take part?
    No, students of any background are welcome to join!
  • Do I need to participate in all training sessions?
    Yes, to give our teams the best preparation possible, we demand all participants to attend the training sessions regularly. However, if there is a valid reason, you can skip a training session.

Do you have more questions? Get in touch with us!