TTU Cybersecurity Team Competing In International Weekend Event

Tennessee Tech Cybersecurity Students will be competing at an international level this weekend.

A six-student team secured a wildcard spot in the Global Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition International Finals. Eric Brown is the Cybersecurity Education Research and Outreach Center Assistant Director.

“It’s a testament to their own work ethic and ambition that they have to develop the additional skills that they need, and overall, it is a benefit to the workforce pipeline,” Brown said. “This is another way they we train.”

Brown said the event will be an offensive one often called a, “Red Team,” competition. Brown said students will evaluate an unknown network with the ultimate goal to provide a report on security risks.

“This competition simulates that,” Brown said. “It is a fictitious company. These students will be interacting with the C level leadership of this company. There will be requests from the company, communication back and fourth and the technical aspect of them actually entering and evaluating systems.”

Students were set to travel to Rochester, New York this weekend for the finals. But, weather and COVID has forced the team to participate remotely. Brown said regardless of the medium, the competition is an opportunity to apply classroom learning.

“It allows them to go through the exact same processes and activities that they would go through in a job,” Brown said. “Not only are they gaining knowledge through the participation, it also is an incredible item on their resume.”

This year’s team from Tech consists of team captain Kaitlyn Carroll, Austin Brown, Austin Tice, Jesse Holland, Jacob Sweeten and John Housley. A team from Tech has not attended the finals since 2018.