The U.S. Army in partnership with the security firm Synack, is teaching children "white hat," or ethical hacking skills, says Daniel Lim, first lieutenant of the U.S. Army Cyber Command. Lim, who is leading the workshop n a packed room at one of the largest hacking conferences in the world, said the kids are learning how to hack everything from door locks to computer games to hardware.
They're participating in the r00tz Asylum hacking event, which is designed exclusively for youngsters.
He said: "We'll be teaching basic exploitation using open source tools and basic command line tools.
"This is designed for complete beginners." He added
According to CNN, the training is similar to what the Army teaches its soldiers at the U.S. Army Cyber School, where Lim was an instructor.
Eventually, some of these kids might one day hack the government. And that's a good thing.
To bolster its cyber defense, the Army and other government agencies try to penetrate their own systems through hacking. But the talent pool needs to grow.
It is expected that there will be a job shortage of almost 2 million cyber security professionals by 2022. This event can help train the next generation of cyber security experts who will help keep companies, people, and even the country safe.
Last year, 500 kids showed up, said Nico Sell, co-founder of the secure messaging app Wickr.
She created r00tz Asylum event seven years ago.
The event starts by explaining the ethics code, and kids are taught to understand what type of hacking they can and can't legally, and ethically do.
While it might seem weird to those unfamiliar with hacking conferences to have government representatives speak to and work with the hackers, Sell said the government is an important part of the community.
"Feds are people, too," Sell said. "They're hackers at the core."
One year, the NSA hosted a recruiting booth right next to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group.
Sell said that despite their differences, one thing everyone can agree on is that teaching kids to hack is one of the most important things the security community can do.
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