Student Activities

The core values of the Society are Excellence, Knowledge, Ethics and Peace.

The motto of the Society is Ex Scientia Pax, which means Out of Knowledge Comes Peace.

Students who meet the following qualifications can petition for national membership and attend chapter meetings at KSU.  To be eligible for membership in the Order of the Sword and Shield, an active student must:

• be enrolled in an academically accredited institution; and
• have completed fifty percent (50%) of the credit hours required for completion of your degree/certificate program; and
• have completed fifty percent (50%) of all credits in the Homeland Security, Intelligence, Emergency Management, or Protective Studies A.S., B.S., Minor, Masters, Doctoral, or Certificate program (Information Security or Cybersecurity at KSU); and
• have achieved an overall 3.25 (undergraduate) or a 3.50 (graduate) cumulative GPA or higher (on a scale of 4.0) for ALL CREDITS, including transfer credits, or be in the top 20% of your class standing; and
• submit all required information, supporting documents with references, and appropriate fees (differs for each method) to http://www.securityhonorsociety.org/student-applicants-page.html.

There is a one-time application fee of $75 for membership to the national organization. There are no annual dues for national or KSU Chapter membership.

Graduates who are members of OSS @ KSU can wear special regalia at graduation. Regalia can be purchased at the OSS store: https://ossstore.org.

The OSS Scholarship, Awards, and Grants Program (SAG) is now open to members who can apply for scholarships.  There are both internal and external sources of scholarship funds that are available to members.  Please visit https://www.securityhonorsociety.org/student-applicants-page.html for additional information and to apply. 

In addition to participating in KSU's Handshake job board, members can look for job posting on the OSS job board at: https://www.securityhonorsociety.org/job-postings.html. 

Cybercriminals are out there, watching and waiting for the perfect opportunity. They are gathering information about your organization and users, devising the perfect plan to infiltrate your defenses. 

But with a strategic approach to cyber defense you can hack the hacker before they strike! In this session, we'll share insights into their strategies and their motivations. You’ll learn how to use that understanding, along with simple strategies to make your organization a hard target. 

Join Roger A. Grimes, Data-Driven Defense Evangelist at KnowBe4, for this new webinar as he exposes the mind of a hacker to help you see your cyber risks from the outside in. 

In this session you’ll learn: 

How hackers collect “private” details about your organization and your users 
The most common root causes that lead to damaging cyber attacks 
Common mistakes made when designing cyber defenses and how to fix them 
Data-driven strategies for mitigating your biggest weaknesses 
Why a strong human firewall is your best, last line of defense 
 Get the details you need to know now to outsmart cybercriminals before you become their next victim.

Agenda & Registration: https://techtalksummits.com/event/virtual/webinar/hacking-the-hacker-assessing-and-addressing-your-organization-s-cyber-defense-weaknesses

Metro Atlanta ISSA's annual conference, typically held in November.

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ISACA's Geek Week is Atlanta's annual week-long conference, typically held in August.

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SecureWorld traditionally holds a security conference, typically held in September.

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Hacker Halted is EC-Council’s annual IT Security Conference and plays host to over 50 speakers delivering ground breaking presentations! Hacker Halted builds on the educational foundation of EC-Councils courses in ethical hacking, computer forensics, pen testing, and many others. Hacker Halted brings the industry’s leading researchers, practitioners, ethical hackers and other top IT Security professionals together to discuss current issues facing our industry.

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Each BSides is a community-driven framework for building events for and by information security community members. The goal is to expand the spectrum of conversation beyond the traditional confines of space and time. It creates opportunities for individuals to both present and participate in an intimate atmosphere that encourages collaboration. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from participants. It is where conversations for the next-big-thing are happening.

CSAW CTF is one of the oldest and biggest CTFs with 1216 teams with 1+ points in 2020. Designed as an entry-level, jeopardy-style CTF, this competition is for students who are trying to break into the field of security, as well as for advanced students and industry professionals who want to practice their skills.

CSAW CTF occurs over two rounds: a Qualifying Round in September and a Final Round in November. (CSAW, n.d.)

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CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air Force Association to inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation's future. ​At the core of the program is the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, the nation's largest cyber defense competition that puts high school and middle school students in charge of securing virtual networks.

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Mitre presents it’s annual STEM Capture the Flag challenge that is open to both current students and professionals. While current professionals may compete in the com[etition for education and training purposes, only eligible high school and college teams will be able to obtain winning prizes, scholarships, and internships. A wide range of other competitions are presented throughout the year by Mitre.

The NCL, powered by Cyber Skyline, enables students to prepare and test themselves against practical cybersecurity challenges that they will likely face in the workforce, such as identifying hackers from forensic data, pentesting and auditing vulnerable websites, recovering from ransomware attacks, and much more!Open to U.S. high school and college students, the NCL is a community and virtual training ground that allow students to develop and demonstrate their technical cybersecurity skills, helping students bridge the gap from curriculum to career! (NCL, n.d.)

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Panoply, a Network Security Competition, is a network assessment and network defense competition combined into a single event. Teams of students compete for control of common resources and the critical services on those resources. Once a team takes possession of a resource, they must secure that resource against attacks from other teams and maintain the critical services running on the resource. Teams accumulate points for controlling and operating critical services such as SMTP, DNS, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, and so on." (Panoply, n.d.)

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Pwn2Own is a hacking contest presented annually at the CanSecWest Conference. The contests challenge cyber security professionals to find flaws and exploit consumer software and devices. $100,000’s in prizes are available annually for contest winners.

Hosted by KSU since 2006, the SECCDC is an inter-collegiate competition in the National CCDC.  KSU hosts a prelim and regional event each spring.  Students interested in competing should engage the KSU Offensive Security Research Club or email Dr. Andy Green (agreen57 [at] kennesaw [dot] edu).

The First Responder UAS Triple Challenge is an exciting prize competition, with a total of $720K in awards, to help save lives faster and support advancing first responder search and rescue (SAR) operations. The challenge allows you to use your ingenuity, hardware knowledge and expertise to create a concept for an unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) prototype through three different challenges."  (UAS, n.d.)

The USCC seeks to create a pipeline through which talented youth will be discovered, guided and enabled to progress toward careers as technical cybersecurity experts. The goal is to deploy and test multiple talent competitions and talent development initiatives that enable high school and college students to develop and demonstrate their cyber-skills. USCC organizes multiple events for high school students throughout a year, including Cyber Foundations workshops and summer camps. Each camp features four days of intense instruction, culminating in a capture-the-flag-style competition." (USCC, n.d.)

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The ISSA Metro Atlanta chapter has developed over the years into one of the largest ISSA chapters worldwide and the largest IT Security organization in the Metro Atlanta area. The Information Systems Security Association (ISSA)® is a not-for-profit, international organization of information security professionals and practitioners. It provides educational forums, publications, and peer interaction opportunities that enhance the knowledge, skill, and professional growth of its members.

The primary goal of the ISSA is to promote management practices that will ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information resources. The ISSA facilitates interaction and education to create a more successful environment for global information systems security and for the professionals involved. Members regularly include practitioners at all levels of the security field in a broad range of industries such as communications, education, healthcare, manufacturing, financial, and government. 

Discounted memberships for students and regional job posting available!

Contact the Director of Membership (members@gaissa.org) for more information.

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The aim of our Chapter is to sponsor local educational seminars and workshops, conduct regular chapter meetings, and help further promote and elevate the visibility of the IT audit, risk, control and security professions throughout the local area.

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