Case Study: the National Crime Agency helps young people build cyber skills safely with Immersive Labs

NCA reaches 1,476 young people with Immersive Labs Cyber4Summer program

The National Crime Agency (NCA), the UK's leading law enforcement agency, faced the challenge of engaging young, cyber-savvy individuals during a national lockdown and the summer holidays. Their goal was to provide a safe, legal environment for 13-18 year olds to develop their technical skills and prevent them from being drawn into cybercrime. To meet this challenge, the NCA partnered with vendor Immersive Labs to create the Cyber4Summer program.

Immersive Labs provided the solution by developing a bespoke curriculum of over 100 hands-on labs and capture-the-flag challenges for the program. This gamified platform offered practical experience in areas like cyber tools and forensics in a secure environment designed for minors. The results were highly successful, with 1,476 young people registering for the initiative. Over half of all lab completions were practical exercises that aligned with industry roles, effectively keeping participants on an ethical cyber path.

National Crime Agency (NCA)