RUSTON, La. (KNOE) – Cyber engineering students at Louisiana Tech recently got some hands-on experience. The school’s cyber security team competed at a regional competition in Oklahoma called the Southwest Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.
The team’s coach and professor, Dr. William Bradley Glisson, said it’s an intense two-day competition where students get to put their cyber security skills to the test in a mock business environment.
“You have to figure out the network, you’ve got to harden the network, you’ve got to defend the network while all the time participating in what they call injects which is a request from the business unit to change my password, move this application from this server to this server, these types of things,” said Glisson.
The eight-student team earned their spot in the competition by winning a qualifying round back in February. Students on the team said it was a realistic look into the IT world and gave them a glimpse into what they could be doing after graduation.
“I think the connection I made at the competition and the skills I learned will open many doors, not just now but for years to come,” said Junior Kevin Oubre.
“I believe this is probably the closest you’ll ever get to a real-life experience, a real-life job,” said Senior Joseph Siharth.
“It was basically a huge crash course on network security and in just two days I learned so much more than I thought that I ever could,” said Senior Megan Cox.
The team’s captain, Oubre, said they had to keep their network safe from hackers during the competition.
“One example is we saw malicious actors log onto our computer and I just sat there and kick the hackers out of the computer one by one and saw their connections drop,” said Oubre.
The students said they would love for Tech to compete again next year and bring home a trophy.
“This is only the second year that Louisiana Tech has ever competed in CCDC, so we’re still kind of getting our feet wet when it comes to getting used to these competitions. But it was a great experience, I was very excited, nervous, it was really cool,” said Cox.
Louisiana Tech’s team placed eighth out of 13 teams. Glisson said it’s all about students gaining the necessary experience for their future careers in cyber security.
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