It’s a new academic year and yes, we will be fully online this year due to COVID-19. Last year the Computer Science and Information Technology department offered the new A.S. Cybersecurity degree program. This year we are adding lab activities in the U.S. Cyber Range (https://www.uscyberrange.org/) For students taking CSNT 181, our Intro to Cybersecurity course, you won’t have to learn Virtual Box and VM imports, you’ll be performing all of your lab activities in AWS. If you are taking CSNT 250 Cyber Defense and Analysis, we have many challenging assignments for you in the NICE Challenge Project (https://nice-challenge.com/). For our CSNT 255 Ethical Hacking Principles students, you will be learning hacking principles and strategies in the U.S. Cyber Range as well as Hack The Box (https://www.hackthebox.eu/)

If you are a student at Palomar College and have an interest in Cybersecurity, come meet like-minded students at the Cybersecurity Club meetings. This year, we will meet on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays at 4pm via Zoom. Access our Discord server for more information and Zoom details. We are a learning club so don’t be shy – everyone starts somewhere.

Additionally, Palomar College competes in the National Cyber League (NCL) every semester. Check out the nationalcyberleague.org for more information. We will be training for the competition in September and October. We lost a few great players to the University of Arizona due to graduations. We should ask that they be red-shirted for a year (sports reference) as we intend on maintaining our Top 40 National Standing. Contact me if you are interested in competing with us or want to learn about ethical hacking. If you are a former CyberPatriot competitor, this competition will be a good way to continue your training.