Our opinion: SEMO cybersecurity team reaching ever-higher levels of success

There’s a team of champions on the Southeast Missouri State University campus, and they have their eye on a bigger prize.

Actually, we’re not talking about the men’s basketball team (yet), who clinched the Ohio Valley Conference regular season championship Thursday night with their 10th straight victory.

Today, we want to congratulate the SEMO Cyber Defense team, which on Feb. 15 won its 12th state championship at the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.

SEMO’s squad beat 21 teams in the event, which requires students to manage and defend computer networks in a simulated business environment. Industry professionals try to infiltrate the systems, and it’s the teams’ job to keep them out. Also, they perform “real-world cybersecurity tasks” to show competence. Winning the competition allows the team to advance to regional competition.

However, the team is also in the middle of a 14-week global embedded capture the flag competition, sponsored by MITRE Corp., a not-for-profit company focused on national security.

The comprehensive contest requires teams to perform a number of security tasks and protect their systems while also trying to infiltrate their competitors’. The program involves a variety of systems, including smart home technology and industrial automation.

SEMO’s capstone cybersecurity class is ranked in the top 10 globally in the competition, which includes 116 teams.

Cybersecurity has become an important and widely recognized course of study at SEMO, and the program is getting bigger and better by the day.

In October, officials unveiled the Charles Stamp Cyber Command Center, the school’s Institute for Cybersecurity sparkling hub, in Dempster Hall.

Through a $1 million donation from Stamp, a 1971 SEMO graduate, and a partnership with IBM X-Force Cyber, the center is a technological laboratory for students to learn, practice and innovate the skills they need to succeed in the cybersecurity space. The center includes more than two dozen workstations, an immersive 27-foot display wall, observation room and, of course, all the hardware bandwidth necessary.

Mario Garcia leads the cybersecurity program, and three professors — George Li, Xiaoming Liu and Reshmi Mitra — round out the faculty. SEMO is fortunate to have attracted these talented and skilled teachers.

Graduate students Sartaj Chowdhury and Uzair Hussain serve as captains of the SEMO’s cybersecurity team, and Chowdhury recently succinctly explained how participating on the team has practical benefits.

“We are learning teamwork, team management, hardware, software, attack, defense, and solving real-world problems. It’s the best of both worlds. We’re learning the technical skills required in embedded systems security, along with soft skills that we’ll need no matter where we work.”

That’s a winning formula.

The need for cybersecurity experts becomes more important every day. Nearly all facets of our lives — communications, commerce, finance, national defense, on down to the devices that start our vehicles on cold winter mornings — depend on interconnected computer systems. Defending those from malicious attacks and accidental incursions is vital.

We’re proud to see SEMO carrying this flag forward.

Congratulations, team members, and good luck!