For Immediate Release
Contact: Eric Brown, cerocmedia@tntech.edu, 931-372-3519
Cookeville, TN – Tennessee Tech Computer Science students and CyberEagles members have completed another very successful individual game season as part of the 2020 National Cyber League (NCL) competition conducted October 23-25, 2020. A total of 25 members of the CyberEagles Capture the Flag (CTF) Cyber Interest Group competed in this season. Five members of the group, four of which are CyberCorps SFS Scholars, scored in the Top 100 in the nation. To place this accomplishment in perspective, the competition hosted 6,013 participants in this year’s individual game. Congratulations to Nick Stone placing 68th, Jacob Sweeten placing 60th, Joshua Vick placing 26th, and Austin Brown placing 22nd. A special congratulations goes to Andy Brown who finished 9th in the nation with 2,735 points out of an available 3000 with an 83.77% accuracy rate. Cyber Range Engineer at the Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center (CEROC) and team advisor, Travis Lee, said “these students continue to learn and do a fantastic job. I think our students’ efforts are starting to show when you look at how far all of them have come in events such as this.”
“These types of competitions provide essential ‘out of classroom’ experiences which these students will need in the upcoming careers” noted Eric Brown, Assistant Director for CEROC. “The successful outcomes of this competition are a unique combination of the incredible students with which we interact every day, an excellent computer science program with the best overall cybersecurity program in the state, and professional growth provided by the peer mentoring opportunities afforded by the cybersecurity interest groups within CyberEagles. We say it often… our students are the life-blood of our center.”
NCL seeks to provide an ongoing virtual training ground for participants to develop, practice, and validate their cybersecurity knowledge and skills using next-generation high-fidelity simulation environments.
One of the distinguishing factors of the NCL is the integration of learning objectives in all its activities. One of the main ways this is accomplished is by aligning customized content available in NCL Gymnasiums with simulations and games available in the NCL Stadium. This allows players to use the Gym environment to develop knowledge and skills and then demonstrate these newly acquired skills in competitive individual and team play. It also allows the NCL to measure player’s game performance and produce individualized reports (NCL Scouting Report) on strengths and weakness among various learning objectives and industry-recognized competencies. For more information about NCL, goto https://www.nationalcyberleague.org/about.
From here, the students will continue to the team-based portion of the season with the team game being held November 6-8, 2020. All of these games are conducted online, a helpful reality during this time of social distancing and COVID-19 restrictions.
CEROC: Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center at Tennessee Tech University, under the direction of Dr. Ambareen Siraj, is a center of excellence in the College of Engineering focused on crowd-sourced education programs; research in emerging cybersecurity topics; and outreach programs to stakeholders in academia, government and industry. CEROC is an NSA-accredited Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE), host of the first and largest CyberCorps SFS program in the State of Tennessee, and host of the only DoD Cyber Scholarship program site in the state placing the center among the top tier of such centers in the nation. CEROC, via Dr. Siraj’s work, is also the founding group for the Women in Cybersecurity Conference, the largest conference of its type focusing on enhancing diversity within the cybersecurity workforce. More information about CEROC and its programs can be found at https://www.tntech.edu/ceroc or by sending an email to ceroc@tntech.edu.