Hands-on cyber security training brought to life through real-world simulations
It's an amazing opportunity to develop your problem-solving skills, and even introduce you to a possible future career.
Played and loved by a passionate community of over 200k students.
Train as you play in our immersive cyber security learning experience
Non-traditional learning
No textbooks or lectures, just fun, online challenges that build towards highly respected academic outcomes.
Beginner-friendly
A carefully curated syllabus, designed to gently onboard and progressively challenge you.
Transferrable skills
We help you build a portfolio of transferrable skills recognised and desired by employers.
An immersive game with over 200 fun-to-play challenges and real security content
Cyber security is a complex and hands-on topic that can be difficult to learn in the classroom. That's why CyberStart goes beyond textbooks and focuses on fun challenges that allow you to get hands-on experiences with real-world cyber security tasks.
Real security work
Experience the breadth of the cyber security profession by learning both offensive and defensive security skills. Master skills such as SQL injection, buffer overflows and XSS, as well as forensics and secure coding by solving real-world challenges.
Vast range of simulations
Immerse yourself into the role of a cyber security agent with access to simulations that teach you how to find flaws in web applications and run code through your own browser-based code editor.
Prepare for industry
Founded by renowned cyber security expert James Lyne- CTO of SANS Institute, a world leader in cyber security education - CyberStart was built by an expert team of security professionals, developers and designers who know first-hand what skills you need to succeed in the industry.
Experiment ethically
As you begin to develop new cyber security skills, it is important you practice these in an ethical way. That is why CyberStart Game provides you with a safe environment and simulated systems to experience the thrill of solving challenges that reflect the day to day work of a security practitioner.
You'll also get all of these exciting features to enjoy
Fun scenarios
You will become an agent for the virtual Cyber Protection Agency and investigate criminal gangs who are using their cyber skills to do damage online. You’ll have to use various defensive tactics to thwart these cyber criminals’ attempts.
Four distinct bases
Tackle cyber-criminal gangs in HQ by solving puzzles and using cyber security skills like binary reversing, SQL Injection and XSS.
Agent profile and badges
All users get their own agent profile, complete with dozens of badges to collect and share with your friends as you work your way through the challenges.
Progressive difficulty
CyberStart features over 200 interactive security challenges ranging from simple through to extreme. The huge breadth of topics covered and easy to follow platform, helps get beginners started and fast-track those with a hidden talent.
Progress tracking
Track your progress through CyberStart with points and badges. With over 200 hours of cyber security training material and games, it is important to visualise your learning journey.
Helpful Field Manual
For those looking for more traditional learning support when completing the challenges, CyberStart also features an extensive ‘field manual’, with write-ups, video demos and interactive quizzes.
What our users are saying
It's an amazing opportunity to develop your problem-solving skills, and even introduce you to a possible future career.
With CyberStart I have learned SO SO much and it's really been awesome! I have really expanded my knowledge on so many topics and my favorite have been python and doing stuff on the command line.
I knew a little about cyber security, but not too much... I have learned a lot of Python from Moon Base (which I really enjoy!) plus some really interesting common ways of hiding information. I definitely want to keep learning about this!
What you’ll learn in CyberStart
Whether approached by beginners with a casual interest or hobbyists who are steps away from becoming a cyber security professional, CyberStart Game offers challenges that engage and sharpen anyone’s talents.
With over 200 challenges, you’ll experience easy, medium, hard and extreme challenges in the following cyber security disciplines:
- Cryptography
- Password security
- Social engineering
- Steganography
- Network forensics
- Reverse engineering
- File forensics
- Scripting
- Hashing
- Browser dev tools
- Assembly debugging
- Linux command line
