Latest round of HMGCC interns put cyber skills to the test
A new set of student interns has joined HMGCC for an eight-week stint, hoping to learn more about the complex world of cyber security.
HMGCC is one of the organisations supporting NCSC’s CyberFirst programme by inviting groups of students in to learn more in a real work environment.
HMGCC has been supporting the scheme since 2018, when it took in its first batch of students to work alongside software and security research experts. Since then, it has received multiple awards from NCSC for its work with interns.
Computer Science student Adam is one of the newly recruited CyberFirst interns at HMGCC. He said: “I was very interested in computers from an early age, I was interested in how they work, how they connect together and it just seemed to me like a computer was a magic box.
“Before I came to HMGCC, I did not know much about the organisation, but I did know I wanted to learn what it was like to work for government. “I am enjoying the variation of getting to do lots of cool things and people have been so nice and welcoming. I would really like to come back and work here.”
CyberFirst is a student bursary and development scheme for undergraduates. It offers them an annual bursary, supported summer internships and at graduation over 86% of students on the scheme enter a cyber security related role, many of which are within national security.
Daniel, who leads the programme for HMGCC, is a former CyberFirst intern. He first joined as an intern in 2019 and now works at HMGCC as a software engineer.
He said: “It gives you another level of knowledge you may not simply get from university. For me it was very good to get an intro to software and security research. It was a learning internship. We did lots of tours around site, which gave us an insight into what is done here at HMGCC.”
He continued: “CyberFirst is a great way to bring people in who have an interest in cyber and computer science, showing them the kind of environments where they can work and the important roles their skills can play in keeping people safe.”