Twenty-two students in the Central Texas College (CTC) Computer Information Technology and Systems program recently competed in the spring 2021 National Cyber League (NCL) cybersecurity competition. Students participated in the individual and team events which simulate real-life cyberthreats. Starting with practice runs and concluding with the team competition, the event lasted nine weeks.
The highest scoring CTC competitors in the individual game were Genesis Seibel (women’s division) and Jacob Sones (men’s division). Each won a $300 cash prize donated by the Subhani Foundation and the Patricia Marie Foundation. Seibel was also the highest scoring female from CTC in the fall 2020 competition. In the team competition, the highest-ranking CTC team was “The "Executables" - Shannon Larkin and Seibel. Both received $300 cash prizes.
Of the 584 participating colleges (4,190 students) across the country, CTC ranks 98 in the national NCL power rankings. “Three factors are considered in a school's cyber power ranking,” said Joe Welch, CTC computer science professor and coordinator of the CTC student competition. “The competition considers a school's top-performing team during the team game, the top-performing student of the individual game and the number of participating students from the school. Additional consideration is given to a better student performance during the individual game.”
Seibel and Sones both placed in the gold bracket for highest scoring competitors while four more CTC students were among the second highest scorers, or silver bracket. They were Larkin, Nina Stinehour, Scott Lambert, Jomar Velez Come and Cedric Patton.
The NCL replicates real-life cyberthreats in a safe environment to enable students to learn how to defend organizations against cyberthreats and keep them secure. The competition consists of a series of challenges allowing students to demonstrate their ability to identify hackers from forensic data, penetrate and audit vulnerable websites, recover from ransomware attacks and other skills tests. During the individual game, students may not receive assistance from anyone else but in the Team Game, students may receive assistance, but only from members of their team. Performance in both games is used to calculate their school’s cyber power ranking.
“NCL has created an e-sports meets edutainment competitive game,” said Welch. “It is an innovative way for students to apply what they were learning in class and also helps reduce barriers and excite young people to participate. The hands-on learning students gain by facing real-world challenges makes them much more employable.”
The NCL challenges are based on nine critical cybersecurity workforce categories: open source intelligence, cryptography, password cracking, log analysis, network traffic analysis, forensics, web application exploitation, scanning and enumeration and exploitation. “This season, the challenges were substantially harder,” said Welch. “But our students responded well as the national ranking for the highest scoring CTC competitors was higher.”
CTC opened the Network Cloud Support and Cybersecurity curriculum this spring. It offers associate degree or certificate programs with career options in cybersecurity, network server and cloud administrator, telecommunications technician, IT network analyst and network administrator.
In addition, a Cyberdefense – Information Assurance program was added last fall. Students are also afforded the option of either an associate of applied science degree or certificate of completion. The degree plan includes 60 credit hours in a variety of courses such as Network Defense and Countermeasures, Information Technology Security and Firewalls and Network Security. The certificate option is 23 credit hours and is designed for early entry into the career of cybersecurity.
The increase of identity theft, computer fraud and loss of company secrets has created a high demand for information security professionals. “With a degree or certificate in cybersecurity, students will almost immediately find employment,” said Welch. “This is an ever-growing field and one that pays well. I’m aware of one apprenticeship available for female students that pays $55,000 the first year and then $65,000 for the second year. A median hourly wage for information security analysts is approximately $48 an hour which equates to an annual salary of nearly $100,000.”