NLC Cyber Defense Students Make the National List of Top Performing Schools by National Cyber League

December 15, 2021

Northeast Lakeview College is the only local college to make the national list

Cyber Defense Students representing Northeast Lakeview College (NLC) competed for the second time in the National Cyber League (NCL) competition. The NCL compiles and releases a “College Power Rankings” listing of the top-performing institutions based on Individual achievement, Team achievement, and overall participation by the college’s students. Northeast Lakeview College made the list and ranked both nationally and regionally. No other local institutions made the Top 100 National ranking.

Northeast Lakeview College was ranked #84 in the Nation and #25 in the Central Region, beating out schools like Rice, Louisiana Tech, Purdue, UTSA, and Tulane in this region.

The National Cyber League competition is a “capture the flag” or “hack-a-thon” style event for U.S. collegiate (2yr, 4yr, and graduate) level schools. The competition includes challenges from Open-Source Intelligence, Cryptography, Password Cracking, Forensics, and 5 other categories. Students are given cyber security challenges ranging from easy to hard and have 56 hours over a single weekend to solve as many challenges as possible.

“This is a great accomplishment for these students,” says Chip Thornsburg, NLC Cyber defense program coordinator.  “Students in NLC’s associate degree level Cyber Defense program were able to compete against and beat 4yr university and graduate-level teams from across the country in this National competition. This demonstrates the efficacy of NLC Cyber Defense coursework, along with the dedication of NLC students, and the critical thinking skills needed to overcome any challenge. “

The Cyber Defense program at Northeast Lakeview College began in 2019 and since then has been touted with several recognitions.  Most recently being named one of the 20 best associate degree programs in the nation in 2021 for Cybersecurity.  NLC's Cyber Defense program equips students with industry-relevant Cyber Security Training in Cisco, Windows, and Linux inside of a dedicated network environment.

About The National Cyber League

Every year, over 10,000 students from more than 300 colleges and universities across the US participate in the NCL competitions. These rankings represent the ability of students from these schools to perform real-world cybersecurity tasks on the Cyber Skyline platform. Students had to identify hackers from forensic data, pentest, and audit vulnerable websites, recover from ransomware attacks, and more. Schools are ranked based on their top team performance, their top student's individual performance, and the aggregate individual performance of their students. View all the rankings and more information about the competition online here.

About NLC’s Cyber Defense Program

The Cyber Defense program at Northeast Lakeview College began in 2019 and since then has been touted with several recognitions.  Most recently being named one of the 20 best associate degree programs in the nation in 2021 for Cybersecurity.  NLC's Cyber Defense program equips students with industry-relevant Cyber Security Training in Cisco, Windows, and Linux inside of a dedicated network environment.

Learn more and to apply, visit the Cyber Defense webpage.