{"id":441,"date":"2023-12-08T16:42:22","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T16:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/?p=441"},"modified":"2023-12-08T16:42:22","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T16:42:22","slug":"ready-to-protect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/2023\/12\/08\/ready-to-protect\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready to protect"},"content":{"rendered":"
As he prepares to walk across the stage with a master\u2019s degree in Cyber Forensics & Security, Marshall graduate student Jack McFee is excited to enter a workforce that desperately needs professionals with his skillset.<\/p>\n

These days, and in the years to come, a lot of the protectors and crimefighters who are needed to keep the world safe are different. No gun. No badge. No police academy training.<\/p>\n

No, this growing set of professionals is armed with a different set of skills, tools and tactics and their assignment, it\u2019s pretty huge. It\u2019s the entire cyber realm.<\/p>\n

Luckily for all who need protection and for those students like Jack who thrive on putting their technology skills to the test to find answers and solve problems, Marshall University has built a cyber program that sharpens their skills through not only coursework, but plenty of real world, hands-on opportunities.<\/p>\n

\n\t “I\u2019m looking at cybersecurity analyst jobs or digital forensic analyst jobs. Since our program prepares us for both fields it gives us the breadth of choosing where we want to go, which is nice.”<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Jack McFee<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking at cybersecurity analyst jobs or digital forensic analyst jobs,\u201d he said. \u201cSince our program prepares us for both fields it gives us the breadth of choosing where we want to go, which is nice. \u2026 There is a huge gap right now in the industry. You\u2019re not going to not find a job in cybersecurity, and the field is only going to continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The job growth projection is over 30% in the next nine years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some more great news, as far as Jack is concerned, is that it\u2019s a degree that is doable.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to be a coder in high school. You don\u2019t need to be a computer whiz,\u201d he said. \u201cYou need to have basic knowledge of technology and the willingness to keep up with technology because it\u2019s constantly changing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jack found his way to Marshall\u2019s cyber security programs from Charleston, South Carolina, where he had grown up watching TV shows revolving around criminal investigations like \u201cCSI: Miami\u201d and \u201cNCIS.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked forensic anthropology, but I didn\u2019t want to go to med school,\u201d he said. Knowing his aptitude with computers, his dad helped him explore degree programs that combined technology with crime-solving and forensics. They came across Marshall University, which his dad recognized, basically, through sports. Then they looked into lowering his tuition through the Academic Common Market, which will allow out-of-state students to attend at in-state tuition prices, if their home state doesn\u2019t have the academic program they want.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the Academic Common Market and scholarships after I applied, I could attend Marshall for less than an in-state school (in South Carolina),\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a big selling point for Marshall definitely, the affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marshall cyber has some definite aspects that set it apart, he said. The fact that the faculty members have worked in the field before coming to academia gives them tremendous insight that they pass along to their students, Jack said, not to mention they\u2019re supportive and accessible to students.<\/p>\n

One thing that the faculty have made sure of is that the students get real-world experience using the same tools they\u2019ll use in the field. For Jack, that hands-on experience has come in three forms, participating in competitions as part of Marshall\u2019s Cyber Collegiate Defense Club, as well as participating in Locked Shields, the world\u2019s largest international cyber defense exercise, and working a summer internship with the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Fusion Center.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Along with weekly meetings that feature speakers who are usually industry professionals, the Marshall University Collegiate Cyber Defense Club provides opportunities for hands-on learning through competitions, including National Cyber League competitions and the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC).<\/p>\n

The club\u2019s performance speaks volumes about the education they\u2019re getting here at Marshall. Along with winning the National Cyber League competition in 2020, the club regularly places highly and according to U.S. Cyber Power Rankings, Marshall\u2019s Collegiate Cyber Defense Club currently ranks 14th<\/sup> nationally.<\/p>\n

The National Cyber League challenges, which team members can do remotely from their own computer, involve several areas of cybersecurity. One is open-source intelligence, in which a competitor uses all the publicly available information on the internet to gather intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey might give you an obscure picture of something and say, \u2018Where was this?\u2019\u201d Jack said, adding that open-source intelligence is an area he especially enjoys.<\/p>\n

There is also password cracking and network traffic analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you\u2019ve got things like enumeration and exploitation, which is basically when they give you programs that are pretty obscure and they want you to reverse engineer it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a precursor to malware analysis. If a piece of malware ends up on somebody\u2019s computer, as a cybersecurity person, you would need to know what it does, report that to your higher-ups and prevent it from happening again.<\/p>\n

Some challenges take five minutes while others take hours of research of trying new things, he said, but it\u2019s satisfying when your efforts pay off.<\/p>\n

Marshall\u2019s Cyber Defense Club also participates in the MACCDC competition and for it, each member gathers at their cyber lab in the Weisberg Applied Engineering Complex.<\/p>\n

In that competition, \u201cyou\u2019re given a network to defend, and they have professionals that try to break into your network,\u201d Jack said. \u201cYour job is to keep them out and keep your services up and running for as long as you can.<\/p>\n

The Locked Shields international cyber competition, which takes place in the spring in partnership with the West Virginia National Guard, \u201cis the best real-world experience because you\u2019re working alongside professionals,\u201d Jack said. \u201cThey are sitting right next to you while you\u2019re doing stuff and they can give you tips and pointers and you can watch them if you don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t “I chose Marshall because, at the time and even now, it\u2019s still one of the most competitive programs in the country when it comes to cyber forensics and security.”<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t- Jack McFee<\/span>\n\t<\/div>\n\n

Though he\u2019ll be venturing out into the professional world in 2024, he\u2019s excited for the future of cyber at Marshall, which received $45 million from the state of West Virginia for a new cyber facility that will house the university\u2019s Institute for Cyber Security. Marshall also has been designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education by the National Security Agency (NSA).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re building that new building, and we\u2019re building a security operations center, which not a lot of schools can boast,\u201d he said, adding that as a graduate student, he helped in putting together the www.marshall.edu\/cyber<\/a>\u00a0 web page\u00a0 to provide a thorough tool for anyone interested in studying cyber at Marshall.<\/p>\n

His advice to new and current students: Join the clubs, get involved in activities outside of class, and go for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose Marshall because, at the time and even now, it\u2019s still one of the most competitive programs in the country when it comes to cyber forensics and security,\u201d he said. \u201cI am extremely glad that I chose Marshall for Cyber Forensics & Security\u2026. I like that this program is a 50\/50 split of forensics and security. We like to use the term \u2018Swiss Army Knife approach\u2019 when we describe our program, just because they\u2019re preparing you for wherever you might end up in the industry.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As he prepares to walk across the stage with a master\u2019s degree in Cyber Forensics & Security, Marshall graduate student Jack McFee is excited to enter a workforce that desperately needs professionals with his skillset. These days, and in the years to come, a lot of the protectors and crimefighters who are needed to keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}