TIQC’s Cybersecurity Class Graduation

This past Wednesday TIQC’s cybersecurity classes completed their training by visiting Lazard bank in the city and presenting their final presentations to a simulated board which included several of their mentors from the class, the CIO and CISO from Lazard, partner from PwC, CEO from CWA and President of InfraGuard of NYC. The program leadership, faculty facilitators and staff from iQ4/CWA and Queens College have attended the event.

The teams were faced with their greatest challenge yet: to take all the knowledge they had accumulated these past 13 weeks and put together a well-rounded presentation for the board outlining their plan for protecting the bank (in the case study) and its assets. The team was given the following scenario:

A security guard obtained classified encryption keys and other sensitive data from a bank that he worked for (the teams client), he then sold this information on the dark web. Why did this happen? How could it have been prevented and detected sooner? And, what are the companies next steps?

The students had studied various related topics throughout the semester. They have spent numeraous hours within their teams to learn about the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and to apply what they learnt to solve the problem. It is now time to show what they have learnt and how everything ties together. Each team was given 10 minutes to present as a group, after which, they were asked question from the board members with regards to their personal role in the matter, for example, the CFO ask about the financial implications of the incident and remediation, and how much it would cost to restore their reputation. Other questions related to the type of information that was compromised, the public trust they needed to regain, any security measures that were overlooked by the CIO that could have caused this breech.

While many students seemed intimidated by the setting and the questions. All teams pulled through with very positive remarks and comments from the mentors showing not only how far they had come but also the benefit that this class had on them for their academic growth and professional development. Students were then invited back into the room where they were presented with their certificates of accomplishment from the mentors signed by the head of iQ4 and recognized by the CWA. A big surprise also came to the facilitators and the mentors who received their own certificates of appreciation for their roles as well. The teams were then congratulated by the members of the board as they walked out victoriously to begin their summer vacations. We are all very proud of the students and hope that they will continue to grow in their professional careers with their new found knowledge.

Finally, due to the success of the class and the overall feedback from the students TIQC is happy to announce that we will be offering this class again both during the summer and fall semesters! To pre-register for the Fall class, please fill out this form: <<< click here>>>