Every Cyber Security student at LDSBC is learning to protect critical data from espionage and other threats. As part of their hands-on experience, the students participated when the school was invited to the NIATEC Cyber Security competition hosted by Idaho State University in November 2016. The National Information Assurance Training and Education Center plays a key role in helping prepare against cyber-based attacks.
During the competition, eight hours of pure adrenaline was exerted as LDSBC students defended the system against bad threats from the assaulting ISU team. This is the fourth year our MBA students put this together, said James Frost, an assistant research professor at ISU. They created the virtual environment, raised the funds for the entire competition, and even designed the shirts. LDSBC competed with two teams of four, with six international and two American students. The best thing for me is that I did way better than I thought I would, said Amin Dan Haq, an LDSBC student from California.
Corey Schou, Director of NIATEC and SDSC, shared that, there are million empty jobs in the Cyber Security field worldwide. We are trying to build the workforce for the next thirty years.
The Idaho experience was the third competition for the LDSBC students. Their last competition was held four months prior at Open West, where the students took second place overall. The students worked extra hard to win but did not place this time.
We like how competitions give our students experience, said Spencer DeGraw, IT Program Director at LDSBC. They help students understand networks and how to maintain the safety of data. Frank Flores, an LDSBC student from Honduras, said, I put in hours of hard work and gained a valuable education. The competition taught me best practices and the proper monitoring of network traffic. I also learned how to better communicate my reports to higher officials.
At the end of the competition, the LDSBC team expressed gratitude that they could represent LDSBC for the first time at an NIATEC competition. They learned where they can improve and look forward to performing even better the next time they compete.