With a tight race between the top two teams and only an hour left in the competition, organizers of the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE) Cyber Games Invitational unveiled one final twist to narrow down the winner.

“They brought down all the systems at once,” explains Austin Choi, a UNLV cybersecurity student and competition team member. “They wanted to see how we reacted under the most intense pressure with very little time to bring everything back up online.”

But Team UNLV persevered, taking first place and finishing 15 points ahead of the runner-up. Their victory capped off a regional circuit that saw 1,100 students from across the nation compete for a coveted spot at the Invitational.

“NCAE is a well-respected, national competition, and for UNLV to beat out over a thousand other competitors and win — it really shows our students’ dedication and skills,” said Juyeon Jo, computer science professor and executive director of the Nevada Institute of Cybersecurity (NIC) at UNLV. 

This landmark win is more than just a trophy for the university; it is proof of concept. UNLV’s computer science and cybersecurity programs are not purely theoretical; they incorporate experiential learning to prepare students for the modern workforce.

The Crucible of Competition: Testing Skills Under Fire

The high-stakes world of cybersecurity competitions operate as live-action attack-and-defense contests. Competing "blue" teams are tasked with defending a simulated corporate infrastructure while an aggressive "red" team attempts to breach their defenses.

In this environment, UNLV's blue team had to rapidly establish and maintain critical services, including websites, databases, file sharing, and remote access protocols, keeping them live and accessible to users just as an IT department would in a real enterprise environment. Meanwhile, the red team — composed entirely of volunteer industry professionals — relentlessly attacked those exact services.

Because this day-long event is sponsored by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and demands a rigorous combination of technical acuity, high-level teamwork, and professional business practices, employers recognize its value and the skill level of those who win it.

“Cyber Games taught me that practical knowledge is as important as theoretical knowledge,” shared team member Humza Moten. “There’s only so much reading and studying you can do to understand cybersecurity. The way you actually learn it is by putting your hands on it and developing your skills. Getting this experience was super important.”

Ensuring students get that experience is part of a robust ecosystem for cybersecurity professionals. The Nevada Institute of Cybersecurity covers travel costs and provides vital infrastructure to UNLV's cybersecurity student organizations. The victorious 2026 UNLV Cyber Games championship team was led by the Layer Zero and included members from UNLV’s Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) Student Chapter and the UNLV Cyber Clinic.

The NIC also collaborates with external organizations like C2Society to host Capture the Flag (CTF) events right here at UNLV. This ensures that students at every skill level have ongoing opportunities to practice, learn, and sharpen their skills in real time.

“Competitions let you see what it’s like to be under attack in real-time, feel the stress, and learn how to perform under that stress,” added Santiago Montenegro. “To prepare for handling real attacks, there’s no better practice.”

Career Prep That Offers Hands-on, Real-World Skills

Competitions, however, are only one pillar of the strategy. To truly prepare students for the workforce, the NIC looks beyond simulated environments to real-world community impact.

Nearly five years ago, UNLV computer science professors Juyeon Jo and Yoohwan Kim identified a critical gap. Local employers noted that while the university's graduates possessed excellent technical knowledge, they were frequently lacking in practical experience and essential soft skills like communication, client management, and teamwork.

In response, Jo and Kim — alongside then-graduate student and UNLV lecturer Mehdi Abid — launched the UNLV Cyber Clinic. The clinic's founders engineered a fully faculty-directed, student-run organization modeled after a real-world company. No workshops, no guest lectures, just an opportunity to gain real job experience.

Students are assigned leadership roles, manage department deliverables, and operate in tight-knit teams. Every member is accountable to their peers, supervisors, and clients, mirroring the exact corporate hierarchy they will encounter after graduation.

Servicing the Community

While UNLV's Cyber Clinic stays busy hosting summer camps for high schoolers and conducting community outreach, its crown jewel is its small business cybersecurity assessment program. High-profile corporate ransomware attacks dominate the news cycles, but small businesses are often the most vulnerable targets. In fact, more than 70% of cyberattacks target small businesses.

Through the Cyber Clinic, teams of three to five students are deployed to meet directly with local small business owners. The students conduct audits to identify physical and digital vulnerabilities in critical organizational assets, perform risk analyses, and evaluate existing security measures. Findings are documented in a formal business report, and students work alongside the client to implement practical, cost-effective remediation strategies.

From securing their own clients to maintaining consistent professional communication and presenting dense technical findings in a digestible format for business owners, students gain invaluable experience that cannot be replicated within classroom walls. To date, student volunteers have successfully delivered hundreds of these no-cost cybersecurity assessments.

“The last thing that you want to happen is an attack on your security, leaving you with a huge problem to deal with,” explains Ali Qadri, owner of IceBerg Diamonds in the Boulevard Mall and a client of the UNLV Cyber Clinic. “As a small business, you don’t have the same bandwidth (to protect against cyber attacks) as some of these larger corporations do.”

Proving In-Demand Industry Knowledge Through Certifications

For hiring managers and cybersecurity executives, certifications are an indispensable tool used to validate a job candidate's baseline competency in specific technical areas. When paired with a degree, these credentials prove to employers that a graduate is dedicated to continuous self-investment and possesses practical, job-ready knowledge on day one.

For the students, having these credentials can drastically shorten the post-graduation job search. According to a 2024 study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), professional certificates reduce a graduate's job search time by an average of 20%.

However, pursuing these certifications independently can present some steep hurdles. Troubleshooting advanced concepts alone can be incredibly challenging, and the hefty exam registration fees can be cost-prohibitive for a college student.

The NIC and the Cyber Clinic help dismantle these barriers. They cover the cost of study materials, lab environments, and exam vouchers for certifications like Network+, Security+, CySA+, and Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), among others, for students who are active in cybersecurity organizations and ready to pursue them.

Through the Cyber Clinic's training department, peers who have already passed the exams host structured training and accountability groups. Thanks to this support system, UNLV students taking the Security+ exam have a 95% pass rate.

Certification prep has been embedded directly into the academic curriculum. In the Bachelor of Science in Cybersecurity program launched last fall, multiple required courses are aligned with industry certifications so students can master core academic concepts, earn degree credits, and gain the knowledge they need to pass certification exams.

Additionally, students who have already secured specific certifications on their own may be able to have a class or the class’ final waived, and/or be given credit for the course.

“By embedding industry certifications directly into our degrees, we are erasing the traditional boundary between academic theory and industry reality,” says professor Greg Moody. “Employers no longer have to guess if a UNLV graduate can handle the job on day one. Our students graduate with both the analytical mindset of a university degree and the practical toolkit that the market demands right now.”

The Ultimate Skill: Adaptability

No matter how many courses a student completes, how many technical tools they master, or how many certifications they stack on their resume, technology will always change. Ultimately, the most vital trait UNLV’s experiential ecosystem builds is adaptability.

As student Austin Choi says, “You will learn concepts and fundamentals in the classroom, but when up against a new challenge, you will need to be flexible in the way you apply those concepts and skills.”

By blending the intense pressure of live cyber games, the client-facing accountability of small business consulting, and the validation of professional certifications, UNLV isn't just teaching students how to pass tests. It is developing adaptable, resilient, workforce-ready leaders equipped to secure the digital frontiers of tomorrow.