Category: Competitions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(contact Megan Cooper cerocmedia@tntech.edu, (931) 372-3519 for more information) September 28, 2023

COOKEVILLE, TN – The Cybersecurity Education, Research, and Outreach Center (CEROC) is pleased to announce that its CTF competition team took first place at the 2023 InfoSec Nashville CTF.  A total of ten teams (five participants per team) competed in the event, representing a mix of industry members and colleges.

“Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions allow students to exercise a wealth of skillsets as the tasks cover several different areas of cybersecurity.  Our students continue to demonstrate their diversity of skill in competitions of this type,” stated Eric Brown, Associate Director for Workforce Development at CEROC.

This is the 7^th year Tennessee Tech has been a part of the InfoSec Nashville community.  CEROC students/staff have served in ambassador and presenter roles.  This year represented the first time that CEROC students have been able to participate in a competition associated with the conference.  Organized by the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Middle Tennessee Chapter, InfoSec Nashville is an annual cybersecurity conference focusing on current trends and technology in cybersecurity in the industry and government sectors.  The CTF competition was hosted by Hack the Box, a popular cybersecurity upskilling platform used worldwide.

“I am incredibly proud of this team’s performance.  Our students train throughout the year in CTF, defensive, and offensive cybersecurity through student clubs.  These students, from all academic levels, clearly demonstrate the student talent pool at Tennessee Tech who will enter the cyber workforce as defenders of our critical infrastructure and systems,” Jeremy Potts, a cyber range engineer with CEROC.

CEROC:  Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center at Tennessee Tech University is a center of excellence in the College of Engineering focused on K-20 cybersecurity education programs, research in emerging cybersecurity topics, and outreach programs to stakeholders in academia, government, and industry.  CEROC is an NSA-designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (NCAE-C CD) and host of the first and largest CyberCorps SFS program in the State of Tennessee.  Tennessee Tech is also the home of the Golden Eagle Cyber Certificate program, a dual enrollment program allowing high school students to take college-level cybersecurity courses contributing to their post-secondary work.  More information about CEROC and its programs can be found at https://www.tntech.edu/ceroc or by emailing ceroc@tntech.edu.

COOKEVILLE, TN – Recently announced on Twitter, Tennessee Tech’s CPTC team won 3rd place in the Global CPTC International Finals held in Rochester, NY January 6-9, 2022. A total of 16 teams completed in the international competition. First place went to Cal Poly Pomona with second place going to Stanford University.

While weather-related issues made travel to Rochester impossible, Tech’s team demonstrated their resilience and competed remotely with the team distributed over multiple locations across the state. “The agility and determination of this team has been nothing less than impressive” stated CEROC’s assistant director, Eric Brown. “We are incredibly proud of their achievements.” Dr. Ambareen Siraj, center director, noted “This year we had a team of great students who have consistently demonstrated their passion for cybersecurity, continuous learning, work ethics and collaborative mindset. Perfect recipe of a winning team!”

From the competitions website, “At its heart, CPTC is a bit different from several other collegiate Cybersecurity competitions. Instead of defending your network, searching for flags, or claiming ownership of systems, CPTC focuses on mimicking the activities performed during a real-world penetration testing engagement conducted by companies, professional services firms, and internal security departments around the world.”

“To give an idea of the level of this competition; during both the 2020-2021 and the 2019-2020 competition cycles, some teams had more than 100 students attend tryouts. During the Global Finals, competitors discovered zero-days in commercial technologies, registered them as CVEs, and designed a patch for the most critical vulnerability. Many students get co-op and career job offers as a direct result of the Sponsor Faire.”

Each year of the competition focuses on a different business sector. In the past, these sectors have included Energy, Finance, Transportation, and Healthcare. This year’s competition focused on the Food Manufacturing and Retail sector.

The team consists of team captain Kaitlyn Carroll, Austin Brown, Austin Tice, Jesse Holland, Jacob Sweeten, and John Housley.  Five members of the six-member team are CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (a program funded by the National Science Foundation) students. 

More information about CPTC can be found at https://cp.tc. More information about Tennessee Tech can be found at https://www.tntech.edu/about.

About Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center

CEROC at Tennessee Tech University, established under the direction of Dr. Ambareen Siraj, is a center of excellence in the College of Engineering focused on K-20 cybersecurity education programs; research in emerging cybersecurity topics; and outreach programs to stakeholders in academia, government and industry.  CEROC is an NSA-designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) and host of the first and largest CyberCorps SFS program in the State of Tennessee.  CEROC, via Dr. Siraj’s work, is also the founding group for the Women in Cybersecurity initiative, the largest of its type in the world 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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(contact cerocmedia@tntech.edu, (931) 372-3519 for more information)
November 30, 2021

COOKEVILLE, TN – Recently announced on Twitter, Tennessee Tech’s CPTC team has secured a wildcard slot allowing them to move forward to the Global CPTC International Finals to be held in Rochester, NY January 6-9, 2022. This will the team’s first return to the finals since 2018.

First place regional winners Cal Poly Pomona, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Dakota State University, Carnegie Mellon University, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Florida, and Masaryk University were guaranteed a finals position after regional competitions. Joining Tennessee Tech as wildcard winners are California State University – Fullerton, DePaul University, Drexel University, Stanford University, University of New Haven, University of Tulsa, and University of West Florida.

From the competitions website, “At its heart, CPTC is a bit different from several other collegiate Cybersecurity competitions. Instead of defending your network, searching for flags, or claiming ownership of systems, CPTC focuses on mimicking the activities performed during a real-world penetration testing engagement conducted by companies, professional services firms, and internal security departments around the world.”

“To give an idea of the level of this competition; during both the 2020-2021 and the 2019-2020 competition cycles, some teams had more than 100 students attend tryouts. During the Global Finals, competitors discovered zero-days in commercial technologies, registered them as CVEs, and designed a patch for the most critical vulnerability. Many students get co-op and career job offers as a direct result of the Sponsor Faire.”

Each year of the competition focuses on a different business sector. In the past, these sectors have included Energy, Finance, Transportation, and Healthcare. This year’s competition focus will be on the Food Manufacturing and Retail sector.

“We are thrilled to return to the finals this year! After a semester of restarts after COVID interrupted/modified so many competition schedules, it is nice to feel like we are back in the lane again. We are incredibly proud of the efforts of these young men and women” stated Eric Brown, assistant director for the center. The team consists of team captain Kaitlyn Carroll, Austin Brown, Austin Tice, Jesse Holland, Jacob Sweeten, and John Housley.  Five members of the six-member team are CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (a program funded by the National Science Foundation) students. 

More information about CPTC can be found at https://cp.tc. More information about Tennessee Tech can be found at https://www.tntech.edu/about.

About Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center

CEROC at Tennessee Tech University, established under the direction of Dr. Ambareen Siraj, is a center of excellence in the College of Engineering focused on K-20 cybersecurity education programs; research in emerging cybersecurity topics; and outreach programs to stakeholders in academia, government and industry.  CEROC is an NSA-designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) and host of the first and largest CyberCorps SFS program in the State of Tennessee.  CEROC, via Dr. Siraj’s work, is also the founding group for the Women in Cybersecurity initiative, the largest of its type in the world 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.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(contact cerocmedia@tntech.edu, (931) 372-3519 for more information)
October 27, 2021

COOKEVILLE, TN – It is that time of year.  Leaves are changing color; the days are getting cooler; pumpkins are making their appearances around the area; and cyber competitions are in full swing.  Tennessee Tech Computer Science students and CyberEagles members have competed in three different competitions over the October 22 – 24, 2021 weekend. A total of 26 students competed in the National Cyber League (NCL) Competition Individual game, Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC), and Social Engineering Capture the Flag Competition (SECTF). There were also several students that competed in more than of these competitions.

Students from Tennessee Tech have always posted a good showing in both the individual and team games of NCL.  In past years, TNTech had a student place third in the nation and several in the top 10% of the individual game nationally.  Schools are ranked based on their top team performance, their top student’s individual performance, and the aggregate individual performance of their students.  While the Fall 2021 Individual Game stats have not been finalized at this time, history would suggest a strong finish.  During the Spring 2021 competition, TNTech ranked 10^th overall in the nation ranking 8^th in Teams, 40^th in Individuals, and 14^th in Participation.  Over 300 colleges and universities across the US participate in NCL.  Full results for the Spring 2021 competition can be found at https://cyberskyline.com/data/power-ranking/spring-2021-national.

Tennessee Tech was honored to host the CPTC United States Central region for the third year and participate in the competition for the fifth year. Like so many other events, COVID-19 has changed the way events are conducted. This year’s event was completely virtual with some participating teams having members working from different locations. It was truly a distributed event. The top winning team from this region will join the winners from the other CPTC regions around the world, which include Canada and the Middle East, for the international competition. Seven additional teams will be selected at large to compete in the international competition.  Participating in this event was team captain Kaitlyn Carroll, Austin Brown, Austin Tice, Jesse Holland, Jacob Sweeten, and John Housley.  Five members of the six-member team were CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (a program funded by the National Science Foundation) students.  The team posted a solid performance.  Dakota State took first place in the region moving to the next round.

This is the second year SECTF has been held. SECTF is hosted by Temple University’s Cybersecurity in Application, Research & Education (CARE) Lab and funded by NSF and sponsored by Google.  This competition challenges undergraduate students to gain first-hand cyberattack and cybersecurity experience by using social engineering prowess in a real-life scenario judged by industry professionals. This scenario focuses on four categories: Open-source intelligence (OSINT), Phishing, Vishing, and Reporting. This is the first year that Tennessee Tech has participated in SECTF, and we are proud to have placed 3^rd.  TNTech participants include Mimi Vertrees, Mia Fisher, Hayden Keller, Colin Lafever, and Hallie Sevier.

“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 these 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 CEROC. We say it often… our students are the life-blood of our center.”

About Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center

CEROC at Tennessee Tech University, established under the direction of Dr. Ambareen Siraj, is a center of excellence in the College of Engineering focused on K-20 cybersecurity education programs; research in emerging cybersecurity topics; and outreach programs to stakeholders in academia, government and industry.  CEROC is an NSA-designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) and host of the first and largest CyberCorps SFS program in the State of Tennessee.  CEROC, via Dr. Siraj’s work, is also the founding group for the Women in Cybersecurity initiative, the largest of its type in the world 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.

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Eric Brown, cerocmedia@tntech.edu, 931-372-3519

Cookeville, TN – Tennessee Tech Computer Science students and CyberEagles members continue to earn top 100 rankings, this time in the team game portion of the 2020 National Cyber League (NCL) competition conducted November 6-8, 2020. This season four teams competed. The teams were formed from members of the CyberEagles Capture the Flag (CTF) Cyber Interest Group.

This year, out of the four teams, two teams rank in the top 100 out of 957 teams. The first team ranked 88^th and consisted of the following members: Alex Marti, Kendall Land, Jevin Evans, Bethanie Williams, Daniel Simpson, and Dee Zhao. Our highest ranked team placed 3^rd place this year and was made up by the following members: Andy Brown, Austin Brown, Austin Tice, Joshua Vick, Jacob Sweeten, Nick Stone, and Samuel Neel. Cyber Range Engineer at the Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center (CEROC) and team advisor, Travis Lee, said “Looking back on how well our teams ranked in the past, we have definitely become more consistent and continue to gain better overall performance.” 

“Tennessee Tech / CEROC CTF teams have gained a great deal of respect in this area of competition. This is yet another example of how these incredible students can collaborate to do even greater things together. We are very proud of the efforts of these teams.”, Eric Brown, Assistant Director for CEROC.

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.  

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. 

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 68^th, Jacob Sweeten placing 60^th, Joshua Vick placing 26^th, and Austin Brown placing 22^nd. 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. 

For Immediate Release
Contact:  Eric Brown, elbrown@tntech.edu, 931-372-3519

Cookeville, TN – The Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center (CEROC) at Tennessee Tech University hosted the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition – Central Region on October 10-11, 2020.  This represents the fourth year that Tennessee Tech has participated in the event and the second year to host the regional competition. Like so many other events, COVID-19 has changed the way events are conducted. This year’s event was completely virtual with some participating teams having members working from different locations. It was truly a distributed event. The top winning team from this region will join the winners from the other CPTC regions around the world, which include Canada and the Middle East, for the international competition. Seven additional teams will be selected at large to compete in the international competition.

Competing in the Central Region in addition to Tennessee Tech are the University of Northern Iowa, Kansas State University, Southeast Missouri State University, University of Tulsa, University of Texas at San Antonio, Southern Methodist University, Purdue University, North Dakota State University, and Drexel University. IBM served as the national sponsor for the event. The event was locally sponsored by CEROC. “We are excited to be re-selected as the host site for this regional competition. CEROC hosts a number of outreach events throughout the year. We enjoy events like this where we can meet with our peer institutions even if it is only virtual,” said Dr. Ambareen Siraj, CEROC’s director.

As described by the organization, “The Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC) provides a vehicle for up and coming cybersecurity student teams to build and hone the skills required to effectively discover, triage, and mitigate critical security vulnerabilities. This competition is unique in offering a simulated environment that mimics real world networks. The competition focuses on improving the security posture of a fictitious organization and reporting on risks in a manner that is similar to a real professional environment.” 

Russell Butturini, vice president and security architect at Cadence Bank, a regional commercial-focused bank with 99 branches across the Southeast, provided the keynote address for the region’s award ceremony. Butturini, a long time friend to CEROC, encouraged the students to always be curious, seek to grow personal capacities, and seek to grow stronger teams through collaborative, immersive learning opportunities such as CPTC. Butturini also held a Q&A session immediately following the keynote address.

The competition incorporates skill sets involving the use of technology, accurate communication, and effective collaboration. Lucas Morris, a CPTC director, said “there is nothing more exciting than to watch people grow. In my 15 years of serving in security consulting leadership, the biggest challenge for most new professionals is not deep technical skills, but soft skills. Competitions like these help participants to develop those important soft skill sets and prepare them for their future career in the cybersecurity sector. An individual who is passionate about education and has the ability to communicate is incredibly valuable.”

Ten teams competed in this year’s event. The winners for the 2020 regional competition were Drexel University (1st place), Southern Methodist University (2nd place), and Tennessee Tech University (3rd place). The Tennessee Tech University team, by virtue of their incredible performance, is in the running for a wildcard selection for the international competition. Final decisions will be made once all regions have completed their respective events.

Participating in this year’s Tennessee Tech team are Austin Brown, Max Layer, Sam Neel, Jacob Sweeten, Austin Tice, and Kaitlyn Carroll.  Travis Lee, Cybersecurity Technologist with CEROC, served as the team coach as well as handling technology logistics for the event.  Eric Brown, assistant director for CEROC, noted “This group is just another example of the high-quality, student professionals which enrich our center’s work.  We are very proud of their accomplishments both in achievement and professional growth.”

CEROC (https://www.tntech.edu/ceroc) is a NSA-designated Center ofAcademic Excellence – Cyber Defense and a CyberCorps SFS participating school since December 2015.  Located in the College of Engineering at Tennessee Tech, CEROC offers a wide variety of services and programs across the pillars of education, research and outreach.  Dr. Ambareen Siraj is the founding director of the center who leads its education, research, and outreach activities.  Dr. Siraj is also the founder of the Women in Cybersecurity conference and organization (https://www.wicys.org/).

More information about the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition can be found at https://nationalcptc.org. More information about the Central Region Competition can be found at https://www.tntech.edu/ceroc/outreach/cptc/.

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 April 3-5, 2020. A total of 15 members of the CyberEagles Capture the Flag (CTF) Cyber Interest Group competed in this year’s event. Four members of the group, who are CyberCorps SFS Scholars, scored in the Top 100 in the nation. To place this accomplishment in perspective, the competition hosted 5,351 participants in this year’s individuals game. Congratulations to Susan Jeziorowski on placing 90th, Alex Marti placing 58th. A special congratulations goes to Austin Brown placing 9th overall and to Andy Brown who finished 3rd in the nation with 2905 points out of an available 3000 with an 88.44% accuracy rate. Cybersecurity Technologist at the Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center (CEROC) and team advisor, Travis Lee, said “these students continue to grow and excel in these CTF-style events. I enjoyed competing in these competitions when I was a student; now I get to continue the thrill serving as a coach for the team. I am very proud of our team’s efforts.”

“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.”

The 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 April 15-17, 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.

Cookeville, TN – The Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center (CEROC) is proud to announce that student affiliates of the center had a strong showing in the Fall 2019 Season of the National Cyber League (NCL) Individual Game competition. Per the NCL website (https://www.nationalcyberleague.org/), “The NCL is a defensive and offensive puzzle-based, capture-the-flag style cybersecurity competition. Its virtual training ground helps high school and college students prepare and test themselves against cybersecurity challenges that they will likely face in the workforce. All participants play the games simultaneously during Preseason, Individual Game and Team Game… The NCL challenges are based on the CompTIA Security+™ and EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)™ performance-based exam objectives and include the following content: Open Source Intelligence, Scanning, Enumeration and Exploitation, Password Cracking, Traffic Analysis, Log Analysis, Wireless Security, Cryptography, and Web Application Security.”

In all 5,224 individuals competed from across the nation with Tennessee Tech having four members rank in the top 100. Phillip (Andy) Brown dominated the field placing 8th overall in the nation with 1st place finishes in open source intelligence and traffic analysis placing him in the top 0.15% of all competitors. Three other students, Austin Brown (23rd), Austin Tice (52nd), and Alex Marti (92nd) would finish in the top 100. Other members appearing in the to 10% are

• Andy Brown – 8
• Austin Brown – 23
• Austin Tice – 52
• Alex Marti – 92
• Kendall Land – 136
• Joshua Vick – 169
• Susie Jeziorowski – 215
• Connor Gannon – 476
• Trey Burks – 519

Travis Lee, Cybersecurity Technologist for CEROC and Tennessee Tech NCL Team Coach, commented “This is the strongest showing in the history of Tennessee Tech’s participation in the competition. The dedication of these students to this competitive work is incredible. We are very proud of them.”

The next phase of the competition will be the team-oriented. The team competition will be held November 15-17, 2019. “We look forward to another strong showing in the teams round” stated Eric Brown, CEROC’s assistant director. “These competition opportunities help the students develop valuable, hands-on skills which complement their classroom work. Companies consider these skills demonstrations to be as important as the degree itself.”

Two other Tennessee Tech teams will be traveling to Oak Ridge National Labs later this week to compete in the Department of Energy’s CyberForce Competition. Tech will be sending a defense team to the competition as well as offensive security group members to serve on the competition’s red team.