Cadets take part in NSA Cyber Exercise

Eight University of North Georgia (UNG) cadets participated in the NSA Cyber Exercise (NCX) from April 15-17 at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

UNG's third-place finish in the National Security Agency (NSA) Codebreaker Challenge that ended in January helped it become one of three senior military colleges (SMCs) to earn an invitation to NCX.

The SMCs were "expo" teams not competing for the trophy this year. Dr. Bryson Payne, director of the Center for Cyber Operations Education and professor of computer science at UNG, said NCX program director Shirley McMonigle wants the SMCs to be official, competing teams in 2020.

"The NSA sponsors were very impressed with UNG and with all three SMCs, especially in this first year competing against the service academy teams that have been in NCX and its predecessor, the Cyber Defense Exercise, for nearly two decades," Payne said.

The event featured four five-hour modules (forensics, data analysis, cyber policy, and software development), an eight-hour cyber combat exercise, and a few cyber team-building activities.

Jonathan Obenauf, Wyatt Thomas, Jon Wooldridge, Holden Gossett, Noah Hebert, Tomas D. King, Hannah Terwilliger and Desmond Henderson were the UNG cadets who took part in NCX.

The UNG cadets also had the chance to meet with Lt. Gen. Stephen G. Fogarty, commanding general for U.S. Army Cyber Command and a UNG alumnus.