News
Georgia Southern Recognized at National Cybersecurity Education Colloquium (NCEC)
Having been designated as an NSA CAE-CD (Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense) on June 21, 2023, Georgia Southern was formally recognized as such at the 2023 NCEC held at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois, on September 19, 2023. Accepting the certificate for the university was Assistant Professor Frank Katz, Director of the university’s Center for Applied Cyber Education (CACE) and Point of Contact (PoC) between Georgia Southern and the NSA CAE program. Professor Katz was instrumental in creating the original NSA CAE designation for Armstrong State University in 2015, and ensuring that the designation was achieved by Georgia Southern after the two universities were consolidated by the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents in 2018. The image below is the official CAE photo of Professor Katz holding Georgia Southern’s certificate.
Georgia Southern Hosts Georgia Cyber Academy for afternoon of Cyber Training
Professor Frank Katz, Director of Georgia Southern’s Center for Applied Cyber Education (CACE) hosted students of the Georgia Cyber Academy both in person and virtually on September 12, 2023, for an afternoon of Cyber Training. Five students were present in person on Georgia Southern’s Armstrong Campus, and approximately 70 online students took part in the two hour presentation and interactive exercise.
Students were first presented with the fundamentals of cryptographic methods and then participated in solving various simple cryptographic exercises such as the encrypting and decrypting messages using the Caesar Cipher and the Vernam One-Time Pad.
The Georgia Cyber Academy is the State of Georgia’s official agency to connect home-schooled students with various resources and they provide academic standards for them.
Georgia Southern Re-Designated as an NSA-CAE CD
On Wednesday, June 21, it was announced that Georgia Southern was re-designated as an NSA Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Defense (NSA CAE-CD). This was the culmination of a year-long effort to be re-designated, led by CACE Director Asst. Prof. Frank Katz, and assisted by many individuals throughout the university who provided evidence of the various requirements in the NSA CAE application. Georgia Southern’s designation is now good through academic year 2028. The certificate will be presented to GSU at a later date, most likely at a CAE regional forum.
This doesn’t mean that we will be “resting on our laurels”. Being a CAE requires constant, continual work, and the work continues even as we are very proud of our achievement.
Georgia Southern Prof presents at NSA-CAE 2023 Symposium
Frank Katz, Asst. Prof. of Information Technology and Director of the Center for Applied Cyber Education, attended the NICE (National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education) Conference and the annual NSA-CAE (Centers of Academic Excellence) Symposium in Seattle, WA from June 6 – June 9, 2023. He attended the Symposium as Georgia Southern’s Primary Point of Contact (PoC) to the CAE Program.
On Thursday, June 8, he presented a 10 minute “Lightning Talk” entitled Student Perception of Cyber Resilience vs. Prevention, based on his previous research paper presented at the 2021 Conference on Cybersecurity Education, Research, and Practice (CCERP) at Kennesaw State University. The research was based on a discussion question given to students in IT 3530, Fundamentals of Information Systems Security, over a two year period. Data was updated to include student posts since 2021. Contrary to what some might believe, just over 55% of students felt that resilience, the ability to bounce back from a cyberattack, was more important than preventing one, or taking an even-handed approach.
IT (and especially our Cybersecurity) Students Win Big at the Paulson College of Engineering and Computing’s 2023 Research Symposium
Multiple Cybersecurity students took home impressive awards at the Paulson College of Engineering and Computing’s Annual 2023 Research Symposium. For the information on our students who won awards, click on this link.
