Cyber Defense Team Takes Third Place At Regionals

Members of the Liberty Cyber Defense Team fought hard to take home third place at the regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition earlier this month.

Competitors in the regional finals faced off April 1-3 against 25 other schools, moving along the top eight teams. The regional final championship team will compete with other regional winners in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition on April 23-25. 

According to team captain Nathaniel Hatfield, Liberty consistently lands in the top three in the regionals and in 2016 the school made it to the national competition.

The Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition is annual event where colleges from across the nation compete in cyber defense operations. In this year’s competition, a team of attackers made up of offensive security specialists try to attack a series of computer network systems, and it is up to the school teams to defend these systems from the attackers. 

Richard Bansley, the online program director for Cybersecurity at Liberty, said that it is important that team members are able to work well and communicate with each other during competitions.

“Technical skills alone will not serve you well in the competition if you cannot work together as a team to divide and conquer the problem,” Bansley said. “In order to accomplish that division of the problem and solve the problem in a timely manner, you have to have great teamwork and communication skills.” 

Within the Cyber Defense Club, the Cyber Defense Team is made up of 10 of the highest qualified Liberty students in the cyber community. During meetings, the team learns how to run computer systems, find areas of the systems that are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and improve their defense. Many team members go on after graduating to work for cyber security companies and even notable three letter agencies like the FBI, CIA and NSA.

The team hosts its meetings at the School of Business, where they set up desks and monitors to learn and practice their cyber defense skills, and members meet nearly every day. Hatfield said that the team has grown closer through this experience. 

“We spend a lot of time in there [the School of Business] collaboratively as a team, both furthering our skills in cyber security and also furthering our relationship with one another,” Hatfield said. “And the bonds that we have definitely contribute to how well we work together as a team when under the stress of competition.”

Asher Notheis is a News Reporter. Follow him on Twitter at @AsherNotheis.