Liberty’s Cyber Security Team Set To Compete At Nationals Following Regional Victory

Liberty University’s Cyber Security team is prepping for the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition’s national championship in San Antonio after its big win at regionals. The team has prepped earnestly for the big stage by taking first place at regionals, which were held remotely, among seven other collegiate teams, battling a malicious security risk on a company’s network.

Liberty’s Executive Director for the Center for Cyber Excellence Dr. Michael Lehrfeld oversees how the team preps for large competitions with a winning ambition.

“We have wonderful students with a wonderful team captain in Amanda Jones and Professor Richard Bansley as coach,” Lehrfeld said. “We felt confident that we would do well, it’s just like any sporting event … you feel like you’re set up and ready to compete, but you just never know until you actually start competing what can happen.”

Jones, the team captain, was a key factor in the win at regionals.

“There was a decent amount of pressure to lead the team and uphold the standard of excellence and also even try and go above and make it to nationals,” Jones said. “When we found out that we had won at the awards ceremony it was just like pure adrenaline, pure excitement, everything that we had dreamed of … especially to cap off my college career to be able to do that with my friends was phenomenal.”

Lehrfeld believes that his team does well on one particular and crucial part of defending a network.

“We do very well on the reporting and communicating …  what differentiates us really is that ability to communicate,” Lehrfeld said.

Leadership in high pressure environments is important and Jones’ responsibility to unify all positions and responsibilities has provided notable success. Jones also takes pride in each team member.

“Each member has just demonstrated so much leadership and initiative that I know how much it means to them,” Jones said. “They (also) feel an immense amount of pressure to perform.”

The team’s preparation for regionals is a reflection of its current practice as a cohesive group of members that communicate well. Lehrfeld explains the system put in place for victory to be attainable.

“We have a bunch of systems that we’ve developed in house to help prepare,” Lehrfeld said. “It’s the same thing as a football team going out and running practice or (a) basketball team running practice. We do it on a computer system (with) complex networks set up that enable the students to be able to test out different ways of defending and working on report templates and just spending time mentally preparing.”

With much excitement in the air surrounding the team in its advancement to the pinnacle of cybersecurity excellence at the CCDC Championship, Jones believes this moment is going to be one to remember.

“I’m most excited about the team camaraderie aspect because we get to travel out to San Antonio … It’s pretty much just pure chaos. I’m really just excited for the fun of actually being in person versus doing it virtually and spending time with my team,” Jones said. “They’re some of the best people I know, and they’re some of my closest friends. I think it’s just a really cool experience to get to do before I graduate.”

The CCDC Championship will be held April 21-23. For more information on the competition, visit www.nationalccdc.org.

Licari is a news reporter.

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