Page 52 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2018

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Cyber Forensics: An Academic Partnership with Pittsburgh Technical College

by Professor Phil Grabowski

One of the most important aspects to get a Cyber Security or Security Forensics job is to show evidence of
work experience, internships, certifications, participating in Cyber Security Challenges, and degrees. Philip
Grabowski Professor at Pittsburgh Technical College for the School of Information Systems and Technology
does exactly that with hands on experience in the classroom. Using a wide variety of forensics tools in the
classroom for Digital Forensics, Ethical Hacking and Cyber Security.

Grabowski not only teaches the theory of forensics or Cyber Security he uses hackathon’s and cyber security
challenges that are provided free of charge to his students from Symantec Coyote Diamond, IBM’s Master
the Mainframe contest, Syracuse SEED Labs, and the Digital Forensic Research Workshop (DFRWS). More
importantly Grabowski insist in academic partnerships with industry technologies and companies.

Studies from Ponemon from the 2017 Cost of a Data Breach Study show us that the amount of days to
detect a breach is over 200 days. It is imperative that students get acclimated to software in the classroom
before they leave school, because the average time an IT person gets to look at software on any given IT
day is about a half an hour maximum. That is why companies like AlienVault, Paessler PRTG, Correlog,
Belkasoft, and Commodo provide an Academic Partnershp and free software to PTC’s Information
Technology students.

Students can obtain an associate’s degree in Information Systems in a concentration of Network
Administration, Security, and Programming. They can continue their education at PTC with a bachelor’s of
science with a concentration of Information Technology, Information Systems Security, and Information
Systems Development.

PTC is also partnered with IBM Academic Initiative, Cisco, and Red Hat Academy. Using the tools in the
classroom is imperative. We have three different Security Incident and Environment Management Software
(SIEM’s) that can be used in the lab environment such as Alien Vault, IBM Qradar, and Correlog. Seeing all
three products at any given time has advantages. Students get firsthand experience installing the product,
patching the product, maintaining the product, and monitoring the resources of the product. Before they
leave school they have real hand on experience of industry product that are used in the field. This generate
sales in the future because students have heard of the product and use the product. They also become
important voices to C-level management about products.

Several students that have graduated from the associates program have come back and stated that the
knowledge they gained from using software in the classroom helps them with their day-to-day operations.
Companies that hire from PTC IT graduates are currently using AlienVault and PRTG.