EagleCyberNest lab gives students real-world cybersecurity experience

EagleCyberNest lab gives students real-world cybersecurity experience

EagleCyberNest lab gives students real-world cybersecurity experience

https://fgcu360.com/2026/07/16/eaglecybernest-lab-gives-students-real-world-cybersecurity-experience/

Publish Date: 2026-07-16 09:46:00

Source Domain: fgcu360.com

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Using an unordered list, summarize the following article with between 4 and 8 key points.
Putting research into action Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the job market, particularly in computer science. Students working in the EagleCyberNest learn how to use AI tools to detect potential security breaches. It’s a practical cybersecurity decision — AI can be more efficient than some traditional cybersecurity tools — and it’s good preparation for students’ post-college professional career, considering AI is likely to continue to grow in importance. “First, from the student perspective, we want them to get opportunities in this job market,” said Qu. “And cybersecurity is so involved. There are human decisions as we are actually fighting with hackers. So we still need some human in the loop to give them more policymaking and decision-making.” The research students conduct isn’t just theoretical or restricted to the classroom. Already, several have published conference and journal papers on cybersecurity. And in May, Peppers and classmates Adil Zaben, Jeremy Goldberg and Katharine Ringo also won the inaugural eMerge Hackathon organized by the U.S. Army and the University of South Florida. They beat seven teams from other Florida universities by developing a cybersecurity “honeypot” program that fools hackers into thinking they’re successfully stealing data. “I’m acting as an adviser, but I think I’m not hyping them too much,” said Qu, who said he was very proud of the team’s win. “It was only two days or 48 hours of coding,” Qu said. “And the students are also presenting in front of the Army Research Lab and also the different experts in Amazon Web Services.”