About CyberVT

The Cybersecurity Club at Virginia Tech (CyberVT) is a student organization at Virginia Tech focused on educating students, faculty, and the wider Blacksburg public on cybersecurity.

Our goal is to cater to all interested in cybersecurity: those with years of experience in cyber (through interesting and deeply technical presentations), and those who are just getting started (with our bi-weekly beginner meetings).

Throughout its history, CyberVT has been facilitating strong partnerships with other organizations. In fact, CyberVT and the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets Cyber Team have recently partnered up to share knowledge and cater topics to both groups.

Beginner Meetings

CyberVT offers bi-weekly beginner meetings to teach interested students about offensive and defensive cybersecurity concepts. We offer free training in reverse engineering, binary exploitation, web application penetration testing, cryptography, and many other categories.

Technical Talks

Pending interest and speaker availability, CyberVT offers weekly technical presentations during our advanced meetings. In the past, we've given talks on hacking video games, reverse engineering mobile applications, software obfuscation techniques, and malware analysis.

Former CyberVT member giving a technical presentation on reverse engineering the mobile application of a popular MMORPG game.

Leadership

The executive body of CyberVT consists of a President, Vice President, and Treasurer. These are the students who have been elected by popular vote for the current academic year.

Thomas Rydzewski

President

Thomas Rydzewski is graduating in May 2024 with a B.S. Computer Science from Virginia Tech. He has worked in the government space and perseus a wide variety of interests.

Connor Bluestein

Vice President

Connor Bluestein is a junior in CMDA Cybersecurity and Cryptography. Since high school, he's been intrigued by cybersecurity. He previously led the Data Analysis Team, mastering tools like Splunk and Wireshark. He's competed in events like the NSA Cyber Exercise and SummitCTF. Connor aspires to work in federal cybersecurity, focusing on data analysis and offensive security. In the club, he aims to expand teams, launch certification programs, and spotlight members for sponsors. Beyond cybersecurity, he loves hiking, gym sessions, and pickleball.

Erin Freck

Treasurer

Erin Freck graduated in May 2023 with a B.S. Computer Engineering from Virginia Tech and is now pursuing a M.S. Computer Science. She has worked with Google on their blue team and is now pursing an interest in reverse engineering and forensics.

History

CyberVT (formerly VTCSEC) was officially founded in the fall semester of 2011 by Reese Moore (President), Scott Salcetti (Vice President), and James Schwinabart (Treasurer). Many of the founders were Linux and Unix Users Group at Virginia Tech (VTLUUG) members who wanted to create a student organization focused on security and privacy.