Cyber Defense Club Alumni Gain Valuable Skills and Land Excellent Careers

By Mallory Pittman

Students of Kansas State University will find that the Cyber Defense Club can benefit them in multiple ways. Club President, Richard Petrie, gave some insight on valuable skills and knowledge that might be gained by students.

Petrie mentioned that there are the obvious benefits that include the wider range of scenarios they may be able to handle better because they know more and have seen more.

The Cyber Defense Club meets in the Department
of Computer Science section of the Kansas
State Engineering Complex.

Other benefits include the fact that it is something other than a grade point average to put on a resume. Petrie explained that from personal experience of talking to recruiters, he knows many would rather see a slightly lower GPA paired with more extracurricular activities than a perfect GPA. This shows the extra work that a person is willing to do in order to gain outside, more diverse experience.

When entering a work field that is directly in, or related to cyber defense, the most valuable skill is “the ability to work on your feet.” Going into competitions, the team comes with a plan.  However, because of obstacles, the plan usually does not last more than an hour. This requires the members to problem solve on the spot. Competition team members often get assigned positions that they have never worked before.

Caleb Flemming (left) and club president, 
Richard Petrie (right), discuss upcoming
events with the CDC members.  They meet
weekly in DUE 2208, the Cyber Defense Lab.

Even if a student in the Cyber Defense Club is not a computer science major, skills learned in the club can help them in other areas as well. The club offers a different perspective and more experience in varying fields. In example, secure hardware design can be tied with cyber security, and is a field that has huge demand and can land an individual a nice job, and provide one more asset that makes a potential worker desirable to employers.

Another valuable skill that is improved through work done on this team is the ability to work with others. Time-crunch situations that are a part of the Cyber Defense Club’s competitions build skills that are useful even in fields outside of cyber defense.

Dr. Bartis is a Kansas State professor who was involved with and created the Cyber Defense Club, and has served as a great resource for the team. Though no names were given, Petrie specifically mentioned that some of his club’s alumni are now working at Linked In, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Army’s Cyber Warfare Brigade, and Cylance.  Speaking of alumni in general, Petrie stated: “I don’t know [an] alumni who has graduated from CDC [Cyber Defense Club] that isn’t in a great position.”

http://ksucyberdefencenews.blogspot.com/

Money, Money, Money

By Madison Loschke

Kansas State University’s Cyber Defense Club competition team travels across the Midwest in the United States for competition. These kinds of adventures take some serious planning because hauling the whole team on a small budget is a feat in and of itself.

Club treasurer, Caleb Fleming, 
at a recent cyber defense competition.

The Cyber Defense Club’s budget is designated mainly for travel expenses. This budget is formed by funding from the Kansas State University Department of Computer Science, as well as the College of Engineering.  The team must budget and plan every aspect of their travels from making hotel reservations to deciding what gas station to get fuel at.

When times get hard the team turns to its alumni to make individual donations. The team has no industry partners, however, because most alumni work for government agencies. This makes it hard for the team to gain a large corporate sponsor in the private sector according to the club treasurer, Caleb Fleming.  

To the team’s benefit, their meager budget is doable because of the fairly small number of competitions they attend and are satisfied with. Still, the team is “looking very closely” at their budget because they would like to “expand” and add another competition event this year, according to Fleming.

http://ksucyberdefencenews.blogspot.com/

Young K-State Cyber Defense Team Shows They Are Capable of Competing at High Levels

By Mallory Pittman

The Kansas State Cyber Defense Team began competing about four years ago, being started by a number of Alumni. One of them, Dr. Bartis, is now a professor in Kansas State University's engineering department. By their second year, the teams were already achieving placements within the top three at events.

Club President, Richard Petrie (far left) with other Cyber
 Defense Club members at this year's CANSec competition.

At their spring semester competition they have managed to take home second and third place awards.

In addition, they have taken first place two years in a row at the Central Networking and Security

(CANSec) competition.

Many of their competitions are structured very differently as far as teams that attend. The national competition held in Iowa invites and qualifies three college or university teams, and qualifies three high school teams. On the other hand, CANSec is composed of teams that all do research together.

Kansas University is a rival of Kansas State University, as they have competed at all of the same competitions so far. Richard Petrie, the club president, stated “It’s always a good feeling when we do well when they [Kansas University] are there."

Iowa State is considered the team to beat, since they have two teams that compete and have a lot of practice as a result of the amount of competitions they host for their students and others. The success of a team also depends a lot on the academia. Iowa State has full time professors that focus completely on putting on competitions. They receive large amounts of money, resources, and experience that give Iowa State an advantage.

Competition experience is another crucial part of competing, as a lot of improving is about learning from mistakes and not making the same ones again. On one occasion, the Kansas State team made a terrible mistake within the first three minutes of the competition, losing a flag, which cost them 15 percent of the team's score. Petrie is still very proud of his team, however, as they continued to push through and work as if they still had a chance to win.

For the rest of the competition K-State's team performed very well and unofficially finished in second place, if the points they lost from their mistake were not to be counted. The Kansas State team even ended up beating out many other teams that did not lose any points from lost flags. This was a prime example of the team’s moral and shows what makes Kansas State University's team special.

http://ksucyberdefencenews.blogspot.com/

Young K-State Cyber Defense Team Shows They Are Capable of Competing at High Levels

By Mallory Pittman

The Kansas State Cyber Defense Team began competing about four years ago, being started by a number of Alumni. One of them, Dr. Bartis, is now a professor in Kansas State University's engineering department. By their second year, the teams were already achieving placements within the top three at events.

Club President, Richard Petrie (far left) with other Cyber
 Defense Club members at this years CANSec competition.

At their spring semester competition they have managed to take home second and third place awards.

In addition, they have taken first place two years in a row at the Central Networking and Security

(CANSec) competition.

Many of their competitions are structured very differently as far as teams that attend. The national competition held in Iowa invites and qualifies three college or university teams, and qualifies three high school teams. On the other hand, CANSec is composed of teams that all do research together.

Kansas University is a rival of Kansas State University, as they have competed at all of the same competitions so far. Richard Petrie, the club president, stated “It’s always a good feeling when we do well when they [Kansas University] are there."

Iowa State is the team to beat when Kansas State's team is at a competition with them, since they have two teams that compete and have a lot of practice as a result of the amount competitions they host for their students and others.

The success of a team depends a lot on the academia. Iowa State has full time professors that focus completely on putting on competitions. They receive large amounts of money, resources, and experience that give Iowa State an advantage.

Competition experience is also crucial, as a lot of improving is about learning from mistakes and not making the same ones again. On one occasion, the Kansas State team made a terrible mistake within the first three minutes of the competition, losing a flag, which cost them 15 percent of the team's score. Petrie is still very proud of his team, however, as they continued to push through and work as if they still had a chance to win.

 For the rest of the competition K-State's team performed very well and unofficially finished in second place, if the points they lost from their mistake were not to be counted. The Kansas State team even ended up beating out many other teams that did not lose any points from lost flags. This was a prime example of the team’s moral and shows what makes Kansas State University's team special.

http://ksucyberdefencenews.blogspot.com/