Cybersecurity team wins kudos at Metropolitan State University

It must have felt like a moral victory when a team from Metropolitan State University came in a "surprising second" in a cyber security competition in February.

After all, it was the first time a Metro State team had entered the competition.

And this year, cyber security happens to be a hot topic on the St. Paul campus.

In December, Metro State was the target of a massive security breach. Just last week, after an internal investigation, officials disclosed that personal information on some 160,000 people had likely been exposed when a hacker broke into what was thought to be a secure database.

That sounds a lot like the hypothetical scenario that the student teams were trying to battle in this year's Minnesota Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.

The challenge was to protect a fictitious company from a simulated computer hacking.

In a field of nine teams, the Metro State students were the "big underdogs," said their coach, Faisal Kaleem, an associate professor of computer sciences and cyber security expert himself. Since this was their first time, he jokingly told the team, he'd be happy if they didn't come in last.

As a teacher and coach, Kaleem said he couldn't have been more proud. Now, inspired by the team's success, he's started a cybersecurity club on campus, in hopes of attracting more interest.

His goal, he says, is to train students to be vigilant in the ongoing battle against malicious forces on the Internet. That means, among other things, staying on guard and keeping computer networks "properly up to date and patched."

The biggest challenge isn't technical, he said. It's human.

"I tell my class … by the end of this semester, you are going to be frightened and paranoid big time," he said. "If you're not going to take care of your system … your computer will be attacked."