New Student-run Cyber Security Group Prepares Students for Careers

With cyber security breaches in the news on an almost daily basis and with data theft a concern for even the most cautious of computer users, George Mason University students have launched a new organization, Cyber Security Systems (CSS), to stay a step ahead of online criminals and to groom future cyber industry leaders.

Engineering students Liz Estes, Christian Donose, and Ram Bista

In researching the formation of the group, CSS founder and president Christian Donose could not find evidence of a similar student-run cyber security organization at any other college or university in the country. The George Mason group will provide a model for other schools to start affiliated groups under the CSS banner.The organization held its first interest meeting April 28 in the Gold Room of the Johnson Center. Two cyber security professionals detailed for the 20 students on hand how there is a growing need for colleges to produce graduates who can step into leadership positions in their industry.
 
With its various technical committees and the goal of developing new cyber security techniques, CSS members can gain a better grasp on an array of cyber security issues, making them more knowledgeable and marketable when looking for a job. They also will be better prepared to assume a position of influence in a rapidly changing profession.
 
"Everyone here is tomorrow's leader, and they should all have the tools and skills needed to come out in the cyber security industry to fill those gaps that we have in our nation today," Donose said as organization members, clad in T-shirts with the CSS logo, networked after the presentation. "Schools must continue to grow organizations that can provide these critical leadership skills in growing fields."
 
CSS is aligned with the Volgenau School of Engineering and is recognized as one of its official student organizations. Donose, a graduate student in Information Technology, believes that students majoring in business, IT and criminology will be particularly attracted to the organization.
 
Ram Bista, CSS vice president, pined for such a group while he was earning his undergraduate degree from Mason in IT. He is now a grad student in network security engineering while also working as a security engineer for a defense company.

"This type of opportunity was never there," Bista says. "I was looking for it. This will provide a platform for everybody to have opportunities to excel in leadership skills and expand awareness among us and also nationwide to different schools."
 
"Not a lot of people really understand what cyber security is because everyone is so focused on the hacking aspect of it," says Liz Estes, the club treasurer, who will graduate this month with a BS in criminology, law and society. "It really helps propel us to be leaders."
 
Mason's proximity to Washington, D.C., and the capital region's wealth of cyber security jobs, makes it a natural base for the CSS organization. Donose says that Mason students already collaborate on cyber security-related projects with students from other colleges and universities, and now those schools can form their own CSS chapters.
 
"It will be home to Mason," Donose says. "They'll be following our structure. We're the mother ship."
 
CSS has accepted a sponsorship with Perspecsys, a cloud security company that provides tools for encrypting or tokenizing data before it is deployed into the public cloud.

This story by Preston Williams originally appeared on the Mason New Desk on May 7, 2014.
Photo by Evan Cantwell, Creative Services.