USF Center for Cryptographic Research

CodeBreak
HERS

Welcome to the USF Center for Cryptographic Research!

One of our main outreach efforts is CodeBreakHERS, a cybersecurity camp for girls in grades 8-12. 

Check out the camp page

CodeBreakHERS Hard at Work

One of our main outreach efforts is CodebreakHERS, a cybersecurity camp for girls in grades 8-12. Taking place every summer at the Tampa campus of the University of South Florida, the camp is the perfect introduction into the world of cryptography, cybersecurity and information technology. Working alongside USF instructors and professionals in the industry, the students will learn a variety of knowledge and techniques in the “information technology” field that will help them secure a job in the I.T. sector.

Our camp runs free of charges! It includes:
  • 5 lunches.
  • Academic instruction and oversight by USF faculty.
  • All materials including access to cryptography and programming software.
  • USF pre-College water bottle and drawstring bag.
  • Your very own Raspberry Pi computer!
  • An encryption ring. 

CodeBreakHERS Will Learn the Following Skills

Cryptography & Blockchain

Cryptography is the cornerstone of cybersecurity. The students will learn the concepts of encryption, digital signatures and hashing. We will review historical examples such as the Caesar cipher and play games of encryption/decryption. We will demonstrate these concepts by competing in a cryptocurrency challenge developed exclusively for the camp where participants score points by mining on the blockchain.

Internet Security

 

The campers learn the basics of network connections and the cybersecurity risks that they pose: for example injections attacks or Denial of Service Attacks.

Information Encoding & Error Code Correction

We will study how to encode information to make it understandable by a computer and how to protect it from errors that happen during communication. There will be an emphasis on binary encoding, hexadecimal encoding, ASCII, UTF8, and Barcodes. We will demonstrate error correction through fun games in class. Time permitting, we will also study QR codes which are just about everywhere these days.

Hardware Security

 

We teach the campers how to use a linux system with Raspberry Pis that they get to keep after the camp! We demonstrate cyberattacks that use the hardware such as bypassing password protection using a USB stick. Our instructors have plenty of hands-on activities to dive into these concepts.

Capture the Flag Competitions

We will illustrate all the new concepts we've learned by playing Capture the Flag Competitions (CTFs) which are challenges where each team scores point by solving problems related to some of the concepts we've learned. We will use the CyberHub platform maintained by the Florida Center for Cybersecurity which contains countless CTF challenges. We will have the assistance of the Whitehatters Computer Security Club (WCSC) who regularly compete in similar events. 

University of South Florida