Cybersecurity students across the University will soon have access to a state-of-the-art tool to help prepare them for their future careers, thanks to a donation from a Penn State alumnus and LaunchBox coworking company, Enigma Networkz.
Mark Viglione, a 2015 graduate and founder of Enigma Networkz, has finalized a software licensing agreement with the University to make his company’s security information and event management (SIEM) platform, Enigma Glass, available to students at all Penn State campuses. The value of the software donation is $75,000. In addition to the software, Viglione will be providing consulting for the development of the labs in four Penn State courses.
SIEM tools, which analyze real-time data to monitor threats while collecting and reporting on log information, are critical for cybersecurity professionals to recognize suspicious activity on their network.
“When students graduate and start their careers in cybersecurity or data analytics, they’re going to be using a lot of different tools,” said Viglione. “And they’ll be logging into tools like this, looking at events and data to try to correlate different activities. These tools help them give bigger picture reports to executives and metrics that matter to some of the higher-ups.”
This summer, students at Penn State Berks had the opportunity to test Enigma Glass during their labs in several courses taught by Mike Bartolacci, professor of information sciences and technology. With the software, students could apply terms and concepts they learned in the classroom into a real-world environment.
“That puts us ahead of students that will not get the familiarity of tools like this,” said Michele Calderon, a junior studying security and risk analysis. “For me, as someone who hopes to work in risk consulting, it will help me to understand different systems my clients may be using or give me the ability to offer potential solutions for optimizing network monitoring tools.”
Viglione attended Penn State Berks for two years before transferring to University Park, where he earned a degree in business management with a minor in security and risk analysis. He said he is grateful for the opportunity to have Penn State students like Calderon test his company’s software, and, in turn, provide those students with a valuable experience.
“The students and professors are helping us understand the product and make it better,” said Viglione. “And we are helping to train the next generation of security professionals who are going to be entering the workforce just like I was four years ago.”
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