Cybersecurity Events

Date: Tuesday, January 30th, 2024
Time: 10:00 am to 1:00 pm

Executives from Forrester Research are traveling to Columbus State University to visit the Cybersecurity Nexus Program, interact with students, and discuss the operational model of the program. Joseph Blankenship is the Vice President and Research Director at Forrester Research on the Security and Risk (S&R) team. Jess Burn is the Principal Analyst at Forrester Research serving security and risk professionals. Joseph and Jess are both highly skilled Information Security professionals with years of experience in the field.

Date: Tuesday November 14, 2023
Time: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm

Brandon Sellers is the Manager of Security Engineering at Aflac and Jonathan White is the Manager of Global Security Operations at Global Payments. Brandon and Jonathan are both highly skilled Information Security professionals with years of experience in the field. They both will be visiting Nexus students. The event will take place in the Center for Commerce and Technology on CSU's main campus. Students are encouraged to participate and be prepared to ask questions.

Date: Thursday, October 26, 2023
Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm

Avery Rozar is the President/Founder and Chief Hacker at Troll Eye Security. He will be visiting CSU's main campus and sharing his career story with CSU Cybersecurity students. Avery has over 20 years of experience in Information Technology. His expertise has evolved over the years from Design and Installation to Offensive Security and Cyber Security tools development. The event will take place in the Center for Commerce and Technology on CSU's main campus. Students are encouraged to participate and be prepared to ask questions.

Date: Friday, September 15, 2023 and Friday, November 3, 2023
Time: 9:00 am to 10:00 am

Joseph Frantz, CSU Alum, is Synovus’s Director of Information Security. He will be visiting CSU's main campus and sharing his career story with CSU Cybersecurity students. Joseph is a highly skilled Information Security professional with 10+ years' experience in the field. The event will take place in the Center for Commerce and Technology on CSU's main campus. Students are encouraged to participate and be prepared to ask questions.

Date: Thursday, September 14, 2023
Time: All Day

Peter Staarfanger is Global Payment’s Director of Digital Forensics and Incident Response. He will be visiting CSU's main campus and sharing his career story with CSU Cybersecurity students. He helps companies with contemporary cyber security challenges affecting their digital footprint. Peter has 15 years of experience in providing expertise in organizing and sorting teams for adversary disruption, attack surface area reduction, and risk management.

Date and time: Friday, July 28, 10:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Location: Synovus Center for Commerce and Technology

Dozens of industry professionals will visit CSU's campus to conduct “Mock Interviews” for the Cybersecurity Nexus students. The purpose of the mock interview event is to give students real-world practice preparing for and participating in interviews with actual industry professionals who volunteer their time to help. The CSU TSYS School of Computer Science has excellent partnerships with industry professionals in the local and regional areas. Many global, regional, and local companies will be represented at the event.

Date: Monday, July 17, 2023
Time: 10:30am to 12:30pm

Alicia Herring is a Business Information Security Officer and AVP of Corporate Security for Cognizant, a global consulting firm. Alicia is a highly skilled Information Security professional with 15+ years' experience in the field. Widely recognized for her expertise in cybersecurity strategy, risk management, and compliance, Alicia is known for her ability to lead teams and deliver results that significantly enhance organizational security posture. She shared her career story and advice with students.

Date: Friday, July 14, 2023
Time: 10:30am to 12:30pm

Karri Webster, Bug Bounty Program Manager at Global Payments, presented her career story and the GPN Bug Bounty program. Karri has specialties in application design, development and integration.

Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Time: 10:30am to 12:30pm

Kevin Gowen, Chief Information Security Officer of Synovus, will visit CSU Cybersecurity students. Kevin's organization has hired several Cybersecurity Nexus graduates and is a big supporter of the program. The event will take place in the Center for Commerce and Technology on CSU's main campus. MS, BS, and Nexus Cybersecurity students are welcome to participate if available.

April 10, 2023

Georgia Tech's Chief Information Officer (CIO), Daren Hubbard, and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Leo Howell, are scheduled to visit the TSYS Cybersecurity Center on CSU's Campus on Monday, April 10, 2023. The two technology executives will tour the Center's classrooms, Cyber Range, and Security Operations Center. They will also share their personal career stories with the Cybersecurity Nexus students and give them advice on how to break into the technology industry and advance through a career. Students are encouraged to participate and be prepared to ask questions.

WIT Campus is hosting a hackathon sponsored by Optiv and Arrow Electronics on the Hack-the-Box platform on March 3, 2023 and the CSU chapter of WIT will be participating!

Date and time: Friday, March 3 - 8am – 9:30pm
Location: Room 125 – Center for Commerce and Technology
CSU Main Campus – 4225 University Ave, Columbus GA‬‬‬‬

Dates: Wednesdays (starting 1/11/2023 for about 12 weeks)
Sessions are fairly stand-alone, so you can miss some sessions and still get great benefit from each session independently.

Time: Noon to 2:00 pm
Location: Room 123 of the TSYS Cybersecurity Center (downstairs in the Center of Commerce and Technology on CSU's main campus)

Global Payments has again graciously invited CSU students, staff, and faculty to participate in their bootcamp they use to train their employees to prepare for and pass the Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) certification exam. The SSCP is a well-recognized industry certification that Global Payments uses to train their security and non-security team members about cybersecurity basics.

Most sessions end with a “Kahoot” challenge to test your knowledge against everyone else in the session. This is a fun part of the session since CSU students get to compete against the other groups within Global Payments. There are usually over 100 people participating from around the world! It is always exciting when our students jump into the lead and even win the weekly competition!!

Please contact one of the Nexus Instructors for more information or simply join us in Room 123 on Wednesdays at noon!

Date: Monday, February 20, 2023

Stacy Hughes, Voya Financial's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), will be visiting the TSYS Cybersecurity Center Monday, February 20, 2023 to interact with the Cybersecurity Nexus students.

Stacy has been a strong advocate and supporter of the Nexus program from its beginning and has visited many times in her CISO roles with Global Payments and Voya Financial. She will meet and interact with the Nexus students in the three cohorts and share about the Cybersecurity landscape.

February 7, 2023

Two of the leaders from Global Payments' Security Operations Center will be visiting the TSYS Cybersecurity Center to interact with the Cybersecurity Nexus students. Justin Heath, Association Director, and Jonathan White, Manager, will both visit the CSU campus and meet the new cohort, interact with the other students, and observe the students from Cohort 5 in a Cyber Range scenario. Many thanks to our industry partners for investing so much time, effort, and guidance into our students. Let's hope they like what they see so some of our students get internships and jobs under these wonderful leaders!

Several executive leaders from Global Payments' Information Security Division will visit the students in the Cybersecurity Nexus program. These are some spectacular Cybersecurity leaders who will share information about the latest cyber threats and tools and what it is like to work in Cybersecurity at Global Payments. Students are encouraged to participate in the discussions and be prepared to introduce yourselves to our guests.

Date and time: Wednesday, February 1, 2023‬‬‬‬

CSU's TSYS Cybersecurity Center hosted a group of students in a fun and crazy Friday morning event at Columbus State University! Thanks to Tiffani Migliore, CIO at Fort Moore's Garrison Command and Justin Heath-CISSP, Associate Director at Global Payments Inc., for visiting our students and generating excitement! At the same time, the Cybersecurity Club and Ambassadors from Central High School - Phenix City, Alabama were visiting our Cybersecurity program! Fun times with those bright students! Oh, and Nexus Cohort 5 students were busy with a cyber range scenario while all that excitement was going on!! You can see pictures and more on Linkedin!

What a thrill to have Oliver Banta, CIO of East Alabama Health visiting our Cybersecurity Nexus students at Columbus State University! He even brought a photo of his first home lab from "back in the day" that got him started on networking basics! Pretty impressive setup! Looks like he enjoyed jumping in with students who were working through a "Denial of Service" cyber range scenario as part of the Nexus program! View pictures and more information about the event on Linkedin.

There's nothing more meaningful or instructional for a student than to get time to interact with a professional who actually does what the student aspires to do "one day." Well, hats off to accomplished penetration tester Tripp Saxon from Global Payments Inc., who stopped by and gave his insight to a group of students taking the Penetration Testing (Ethical Hacking) course in the Cybersecurity Nexus program at Columbus State University!! What a gift to hear what it is like to be a professional pen tester and get that expert advice!! Thank you so much, Tripp!! You are a generous professional and a very cool guy!