Cyber Lab Night
Sponsored by Space ISAC
Real Projects. Practical Skills. Shared Knowledge. Every Month.
Cyber Lab Night is a free, monthly gathering in Colorado Springs where students, IT professionals, and experienced engineers come together to demonstrate projects, learn practical skills, and meet people who love technology.
Here's what to expect:
- Live demos: See what local builders are creating, from security detections and automation to home labs and hardware projects.
- Hands-on learning: Each event features an optional workshop to help you develop practical skills.
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THE BUILDER CHALLENGE
Each month, two volunteers take home a free Raspberry Pi 3B, build something over the next month, and return to show us what they tried. Finished projects and failed experiments are equally welcome! - Real connections: Meet people, share ideas, and discover projects you can build yourself.
- Pizza and drinks: On us!
Got something you've built? We want to see it. Five-to-ten-minute demos, no slide decks, and no sales pitches.
Just want to watch and learn? You're welcome, too.
Whether you're building experience for your first IT job or exploring something new after years in the industry, Lab Night is a place to learn from one another.
Bring your curiosity. Build your experience. Grow your network.
Free admission. All experience levels welcome.
Hosted by Skip to Secure.
Our Next Lab Night
- Location:UCCS Cybersecurity Building - 3650 N Nevada Ave, Colorado Springs, CO 80907
- Date:November 4th, 2026
- Time:6:30–7:30 PM
- Cost:Free!
Pizza and drinks provided by Skip to Secure.
Evening Schedule
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5:30–6:15 | Optional Workshop - Week 2: AWS & STIGs - Launch your EC2 instance, secure the SG, learn to STIG and check your work. |
| 6:30–6:40 | Pizza, introductions, and getting settled. |
| 6:40–7:30 | Lightning demos. |
Come and go as your schedule allows.
Please RSVP so we can estimate food and seating. We'll email registered attendees additional details before the event.
Lab Night Line up
Confirmed
- Tentative #1
- Tentative #2
Open Demo Spots
- Spot 3: Open
- Spot 4: Open
- Spot 5: Open
The Workshop Year Ahead (Before Demo Night)
- Core takeaway = the one idea/skill that should stick after the night.
- Anchors = the concrete tools/actions that make that core real.
- The recurring “satellites” like AWS, SSH, Linux, Git, networking keep showing up underneath. Building those skills in layers.
- You walk away not just knowing how to use tool ____, but how it fits into daily operations, business needs, and can speak to it in an interview.
| Month | Lab | Core takeaway | Anchors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2026 | Automated STIG Hardening | Automate a security configuration change and verify that it actually worked. | RHEL 9, Ansible, SCC, STIG Viewer, GitHub |
| Dec 2026 | AWS Cloud Security | Cloud security failures often come from permissions and exposure, not exotic attacks. | EC2, IAM, S3, security groups, CloudTrail |
| Jan 2027 | Pentesting / Enumeration | Enumerate first. Understand what is exposed before trying to exploit anything. | Nmap, HTTP, service discovery, networking, controlled exploit |
| Feb 2027 | Splunk Investigation / Threat Hunting | Use logs to reconstruct what happened and find suspicious behavior. | SPL, Splunk, Linux/auth logs, timelines, MITRE ATT&CK |
| Mar 2027 | Malware Analysis | Safely inspect a suspicious file and determine what it does. | Hashes, strings, static analysis, dynamic analysis, indicators, detonation, write detection |
| Apr 2027 | Design a Secure System | Turn security requirements into a real architecture. | NIST controls, diagrams, data flows, trust boundaries, system components |
| May 2027 | Zero Trust | Access should depend on identity and policy, not simply network location. | IAM, least privilege, SSM, S3/resource policy, CloudTrail |
| Jun 2027 | Terraform + Ansible Deployment | Define infrastructure as code, deploy it, then configure it automatically. | Terraform, Ansible, AWS, Git, IAM, security groups |
And underneath almost all of them, the recurring satellites keep compounding:
AWS • Linux • SSH • Git • networking • CLI • YAML • IAM
You also will have code provided to you each week that can be customized if desired, then uploaded to github. By the end of the year you will have solid experience and an impressive github repo to match.
Registering helps ensure everyone has a desk.
Show Us What You've Built!
We've got five community demo slots available each night. Register for one further below.
You'll have 5–15 minutes to demonstrate something interesting, explain what you learned, and answer a few questions.
No PowerPoints. No slide decks.
Show us the actual thing!
Bring your laptop, pull up your terminal, demonstrate your dashboard, or show us the hardware you've built. Got a 3D-printed component that's part of your home lab? Bring it! We'd love to see it.
Share your code on GitHub if you're willing. Maybe someone else can take your idea and build something entirely different.
Your project doesn't have to be groundbreaking. Sometimes a simple solution to an everyday problem demonstrates valuable skills and inspires someone else's next project.
Need Some Inspiration?
- Grafana: Built a dashboard that monitors your network or home infrastructure?
- Splunk: Created an interesting detection or investigation workflow?
- Automation: Eliminated a tedious task with Python or PowerShell?
- Space Systems: Extra points! Track when the ISS passes overhead, build a satellite-tracking dashboard, decode weather satellite images, or visualize space weather and solar activity.
- AI agents: Built an agent that solves a real problem?
- Networking: Experimented with firewalls, VLANs, VPNs, or network segmentation?
- Home automation: Used a Raspberry Pi to monitor your garden's soil moisture?
- Containers: Built something interesting with Docker or Podman?
- Security research: Discovered unusual behavior and reproduced it safely in your own lab?
You might not care about gardening, but the code behind someone's automated watering system could inspire your next sensor driven project.
That's the point. Learn something, adapt it, and build on it.
Dazzle us with your ingenuity!
Want to Demonstrate Something?
Tell us what you've built, what you'll demonstrate, and what people might learn from it.
First-time presenters are strongly encouraged to submit. You don't need a fancy title, a polished presentation, or years of experience.
Five slots are available. Selected demonstrations and the featured lab topic will be announced two weeks before the event.
No Sales Pitches. Seriously.
This is a community lab, not a vendor event.
We're here to share ideas, demonstrate things we've built, and learn from one another. That means:
- No sales pitches, startup pitches, product advertisements, or recruiting presentations.
- No demonstrations designed primarily to promote your employer's software, commercial products, or your own business.
- No requests for attendees to purchase software, sign up for sales trials, or become customers.
- No disguised marketing presentations.
We're interested in what you learned and how things work, not what you're trying to sell.
Teach us something. Don't sell us something.
Not Just for Gurus
Your first IT job is often your first cybersecurity job. But how do you get hands-on experience before someone gives you the opportunity?
You build it.
Whether you're exploring cybersecurity for the first time or have spent decades in the industry, you're welcome here. Bring your laptop if you'd like to follow along, experiment, or work on something of your own.
Each Lab Night also features a guided lab led by someone experienced in a weekly determined subject. We'll explore topics such as building your first home lab, AI agents, automation, networking, and practical security skills.
The goal is to walk away with something useful, something you can try yourself, and maybe someone new to learn alongside.
Our Community Expectations
We want Lab Night to be a welcoming place for everyone, from first-time builders to experienced researchers.
- Respect the people. Ask questions, challenge ideas constructively, and never belittle someone for what they don't know. Harassment and discrimination are not welcome.
- Respect the clock. Presenters have limited time. Keep questions concise and save deeper discussions for afterward.
- Demonstrate responsibly. Only use systems, accounts, and environments you're authorized to access. No unauthorized attacks, disruptive network activity, or experiments that put attendees or their devices at risk.
- Protect confidential information. Don't expose employer data, credentials, personal information, or proprietary work without permission.
- Respect privacy. Ask before photographing, recording, or publishing another attendee's work.
- Leave the sales pitch at home. We're here for technical exchange, not commercial solicitation.
Organizers may intervene or ask attendees to leave if they violate these expectations.
Come for the Labs. Leave with ideas.
We're creating a place for curious people in Colorado Springs to build things, share what they've learned, develop practical experience, and help each other grow.
You don't need a fancy title, an impressive résumé, or a groundbreaking project.
Just bring your curiosity.
We'll bring the pizza.
Cyber Lab Night is independently organized and hosted by Skip to Secure.
