A student team representing the MGA School of Computing recently competed in the annual Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CTPC). This cyber security competition features teams of college students identifying real-world problems in a simulated environment, then addressing the cyber security issues.
The competition was held at the Georgia Cyber Center in Augusta. MGA’s team was made up of students (l-r in image) Coby Roye, Ben Behnke, Stephanie James (captain), Damian Allen, and Dylan Eddie, with coach Dr. Alan Stines (far right).
“The goal of CPTC is to teach students about offensive security in a safe, legal, professional, and ethical way,” said Stines, director of the Department of IT’s Center for Cybersecurity Education and Applied Research. “Students are given a test environment for about eight hours in which they have to look for vulnerabilities and ways to exploit systems on a simulated ‘real-life’ target. Then, students have an additional eight hours to write a report of their findings. Our students worked right up until the one a.m. deadline to get their report submitted with their findings.”