A team of University of Nevada, Las Vegas graduate students will represent the university in the Social Engineering Competition, an international cybersecurity challenge hosted by Temple University. The competition brings together student teams from around the world to demonstrate skills in open source intelligence gathering, cybersecurity strategy, and ethical social engineering practices.

Teams analyze publicly available information about a designated organization using Open Source Intelligence (OSINT)techniques, develop realistic personas and communication strategies, and design professional proposals outlining how social engineering tactics such as vishing and phishing could be used in simulated scenarios. The goal is to better understand how these attacks occur and how organizations can strengthen defenses against them.

The UNLV team, Rebel Recon, is composed of graduate students focused on cybersecurity and information security. Their approach integrates technical analysis, behavioral insight, and emerging tools such as artificial intelligence to evaluate how social engineering threats evolve in real-world environments.

Students compete against peers at similar academic levels, with participants ranging from high school through graduate programs across the globe.

Team Name: Rebel Recon

School: University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Hamid Reza Nikkhah

Team Members