COD Students Compete in Prestigious National Cybersecurity

College of DuPage Students Compete in Prestigious National Cybersecurity Competition at Argonne National Laboratory

Six College of DuPage students recently tested their skills against students from more than one hundred colleges and universities at the Department of Energy’s CyberForce competition held earlier this month at Argonne National Laboratory. The team included Matt Cozart, Greg Eure, Curtis Ingram, Amber Krause, Matt Martyka and Mark Rendina.

The competition is designed to increase hands-on cyber education to college students and professionals, raise awareness of the relationship between infrastructure and cyber security, and support basic understanding of cyber security within real-world scenarios.

The students’ faculty liaison, Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Technology Brock Stout, said he is pleased with the outcome of the competition.

“I’m proud of the team’s performance at CyberForce,” he said. “They scored a perfect 300 out of 300 in the Chief Security Officer scenario presentation and a near perfect 1090 out of 1100 points in network documentation, finishing fifth out of 10 schools from Illinois.”

While the team started preparing for the competition in August, members only received details on their scenario three weeks before the competition. During the nine-hour event, the team took on the challenge of defending and securing a high-performance computing data center and needed to focus on keeping the center running and secure, while also communicating with three other facilities. In addition, the team was tasked with solving puzzles throughout the day, to learn additional skills, earn extra points and fill in any downtime while monitoring the systems. Students also had the opportunity to interact with a range of cybersecurity experts and partners from Argonne, the IT industry and the federal government.

“I really enjoyed the competition,” said Cozart, of Wheaton. “It is a simulated attack so it was similar to what could happen in real life. It was interesting to see how a hacker responds to your actions. In a field like cybersecurity, the theoretical and the practical are very different. You must have that hands-on experience and participating in this competition provided that.”

When Cozart first came to COD, he took general education classes and eventually enrolled in the Culinary program. After a year, he found himself unchallenged. Further motivated by the untimely death of a close friend, he decided to make a change and began taking computer classes in spring 2018. He discovered that he really enjoyed the cyber defense element of information technology and decided to pursue an Associate in Applied Science degree in Cybersecurity and Defense, which he plans to complete in spring 2020. After graduation, Cozart plans to go directly into the workforce as a cybersecurity specialist, though he has not ruled out continuing his education in the future. He also hopes to open his own cybersecurity firm one day.

He said the competition adds an invaluable benefit to his COD education.

“This competition provides a real-world education as opposed to the theoretical information you get in the classroom,” he said. “By providing hands-on experience, it fills in the holes that a classroom can’t fill.”

Krause, of Bloomingdale, said the competition offered a wonderful opportunity to develop skills that will translate into employment in the field.

“This competition gives you the skill set to feel confident to go out and work in cybersecurity,” she said. “I particularly enjoyed the feedback we received at the end of the competition that allowed us to figure out what we did wrong and what we could improve. The competition also was a great opportunity to get experience working as a team.”

Following her lifelong interest in computers, Krause completed her Associates in Applied Science degree in Computer and Information Technology in spring 2019 and is now in the third year of the College’s 3+1 Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, a partnership program with Lewis University.

“Whether it’s as simple as global interaction on social media or as complex life-saving machines in medicine, technology has changed the world, “she said. “I want to be a part of that. It’s also great to challenge the stereotype that only men can do this job.”

She said she chose COD because she wasn’t interested in attending a big university and COD was close to home.

“I love the supportive environment on campus,” she said. “The teachers really care about their students and that compassion and encouragement is really important to the learning process. I have also made a lot of friends at COD and that has contributed to making my time here an especially positive experience.”

While Krause appreciates the savings she is receiving through the 3+1 Computer Science program, she said the most important factor in enrolling was the opportunity to stay involved with the campus at COD. Taking advantage of opportunities for engagement at the College, she stays active in the Cybersecurity Club and recently participated in COD’s IT Spotlight event.

“It was nice to support COD’s stellar programs and to be a positive influence for prospective students,” she said.

Cozart echoed Krause and said he is pleased with his experiences at COD, particularly the real world aspect of the curriculum.

“College of DuPage has been excellent,” he said. “In my experience, the programs are filled with people who work or have worked in the field. They know what the industry is like and that provides a great benefit to us students who are planning to work in this industry.”

College of DuPage is recognized as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Two-Year Education (CAE-CDE 2Y) through academic year 2022 by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Housed within the College’s CIT program, the Center for Cyber Defense Education is dedicated to the development, promotion and support of education, collaboration and innovation in security technologies and management, information security assurance and digital forensics across multiple academic and professional disciplines. College of DuPage currently offers a Cyber Security and Defense Associate in Applied Science degree as well as a six-course training program aligned with core knowledge units required by the NSA and DHS. Upon completion of the program, students will receive a certificate from COD on the behalf of the NSA and the DHS.

Learn more about the Center for Cyber Defense Education at College of DuPage.

In the face of increasing cybersecurity threats, skilled cybersecurity professionals are expected to be in great demand in the coming years. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 53 percent of organizations reported a shortage of cybersecurity skills between 2018 and 2019. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that employment of information security analysts will grow by an unprecedented 32 percent from 2018 to 2028. The trend is not limited to the U.S. A 2019 report from global cyber economy researcher Cybersecurity Ventures predicts there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity job openings worldwide by 2021.