The Michigan Healthcare Cybersecurity Council (MiHCC) recently provided a unique educational opportunity for cybersecurity students to dabble in the cyber realm. Students were given the chance to participate in a simulation mimicking real-life cyber-attacks in the healthcare sector. These simulations immersed students in an operational security operations center, giving them the experience of what a cybersecurity analyst experiences during an attack.
Cybersecurity professionals from Member Organizations – Michigan Medicine (University of Michigan), Beaumont Health, and CyberForce|Q volunteered to help lead students and guide them through the simulations as well as answer career-related questions. Gamified to mimic popular video games, students were split into various teams and given a different scenario with choices and possible outcomes. Each group then worked through the scenario, making decisions on how to handle different variables to complete the exercise. “This Cyber Education Exercise was so successful we will be expanding it to more students as part of our online Upper Peninsula Cyber Security Summit in November 2021, said Jack Kufahl, MiHCC Board Chair.