A red-faced man in a suit harangues one sweating coder: "What can I tell the PM?"This simulation is one of a dozen or so run each year by the Cyber Security Challenge, an outfit funded by government and business that aims to spot whizz kids not yet working in cyber-defence.
"A fortress mentality will not work in cyber," he said.
Nick Clegg's ex-parliamentary private secretary Duncan Hames now works in cyber security at Templar Executives.
Speaking to federal technology website Nextgov.com, Christopher Finan, a former White House and Pentagon official who worked in cyber offence research, said the NSA revelations were underming relations with the private sector.
"What it does is give the perception of cyber-readiness by those individuals who kind of understand and work in cyber security on a day-in, day-out basis".
"We've seen that traditional recruitment methods, used in other industries, just don't work in cyber security," says Stephanie Daman, CEO of Cyber Security Challenge U.K. "However, there is a noticeable pattern between gamers and those that show significant skills in the industry".
But where he works—in cyber defense usually attracts lots of young people, he tells me.
But where he works – in cyber defence – usually attracts lots of young people, he tells me.
"I've never seen leaks like this happen before in the FBI," says David Gomez, a former FBI counterterrorism executive who now works in cyber security (and has written for VICE).
But one of the dossier's other seemingly outlandish assertions — that the hack involved "state-sponsored cyber operatives working in Russia" — has been buttressed.
Burton likens his cyber-creations, including the peripatetic Stain Boy, to working in a virtual lab.
