The emergence of COVID-19 in the spring did more than send people home from schools and offices. It had the potential to disrupt capstone projects, even graduation, for some students.
A graduate cybersecurity class at the University of Houston found the answer in a video game. Make that a very sophisticated video game with a serious purpose.
Students earning a Master of Science in cybersecurity in the UH College of Technology complete a capstone project in Information Systems Security Risk Analysis, intended to demonstrate their mastery of SCADA system security – the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems used to control high-level networked systems.
"SCADA systems run everything from stoplights to refineries and mass transit," said Art Conklin, professor of Computer Information Systems and Information System Security. Students work in the College of Technology's cybersecurity lab, using real-world equipment and tackling real-world problems as they learn to thwart hackers and other system disruptions in real time.
Enter Clint Bodungen, co-founder, CEO and president of ThreatGEN, a Sugar Land-based startup that provides industrial cybersecurity training.
