The Cyber Knights, Middle Georgia State University's cyber defense competition team, has advanced to the regional level of the 2019 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. The winning institution at the regional level will move on to the national championship in late April in Orlando, Fla.

The regional level competition takes place online. The Cyber Knights will compete from the Macon Campus of Middle Georgia State (MGA).

According to Dr. Nelbert St. Clair, the information technology faculty member who coaches the team, the cyber defense competition is similar to a real business. Teams face a series of real-world situations where students must work together to protect networks. The students find and fix any problems and document their findings to upper-level management while defending the networks against cyber threats and highly skilled hackers.

The Cyber Knights team did not compete in last year’s qualifier, so all of the team members are new to this style of cyber defense competition. Jacob Corley, Cyber Knights team captain and a senior IT major in the cybersecurity concentration, said, “I'm proud of everyone on the team. This was the first competition for many of them and they all did really well. I think this was a good learning experience for all of us and a great opportunity to apply the security concepts we've learned in class. I'm glad we made regionals and I'm looking forward to the next round.”

In addition to Corley, Cyber Knights team members are Jason Ellingson, Brandon Israel, Alondra Burne, Austin Cox, Steven Warner, Cassidy McMichael, Victor Fordham, Joseph Jarrett, Dallas Hoffman, Erick Cook, Andrew Chastin, and Meagan Shuttleworth.