An ethical network hacking contest for undergraduate student recruitment

We describe an ethical hacking event that is used for recruiting high school students to our institution. Because of the age group of the students, special attention is paid to the possible consequences of arming them with hacker skills that could be used in a devious manner. All laboratory exercises were completed with no mention of concealing the attacker's identify, location, or method of compromise. The toolset used in this exploratory event was not at an elite hacker level. These tools could be found with a simple web search, installed with minimal effort, and executed with basic understanding. Creating hackers was not the product of this event; rather, we allowed interested students to gain hands-on experiences in a potential field of study. This event allowed our institution to highlight the technology infrastructure in place, the level of faculty knowledge, and the special facilities in place for our existing student body.