The cybersecurity department held its annual open house event in the McGowan building's Cyber Lab on Friday, September 10. This event is held every year to introduce new and returning students of all majors to the Cyber Lab and its faculty and staff.
Over 50 undergraduate students were in attendance, including those from non-cyber majors such as mechatronics and astronautical engineering. The event opened with Dr. William (Bill) Butler, cyber program chair, giving an overview of the cybersecurity department, the various labs, and plans for the year. Professor Rick Hansen, technical director, gave a talk on the value of competitions and how to join the Signal-9 cyber competition team. The student leads for the labs then discussed their plans and invited students to volunteer–Jacob Crowley for the main Cyber Lab, Jordan Taylor for the Identity, Credential and Access Management (ICAM) and Internet of Things (IoT) labs, and Harvey Vincent and Robbie Lairson for the Security Operations Center (SOC).
Dr. Charles, Cyber Lab director, closed the event with an informative talk about the cybersecurity profession. Also in attendance was the new Dean of Academic Affairs, Dr. Mitchell Levy, who provided words of wisdom for a successful career.
Students finished the event with pizza and wings for lunch while they reconnected with their peers after the long COVID separation.
If any student missed the open house and would like to volunteer for any of these labs or clubs, please email us at cyberlab@captechu.edu. This is the twentieth year of cyber programs at Capitol so stay tuned for special events throughout this historic year! The next scheduled event for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM) is the popular Cyber Saturday event to be held at the McGowan Building on October 16th.
Additionally, Capitol’s B.S. Cybersecurity Program was recently redesignated by NSA/DHS as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) for another seven years (2021 to 2018).