QUANTICO, Va. –
Cyber Defense Analyst Jakob Kreuze of the NCIS Cyber Operations Field Office competed in the final round of the 6th Annual President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency earlier this month in Arlington, Virginia.
The President’s Cup Cybersecurity Competition was established by Executive Order in 2019 during President Donald Trump’s first term. It is designed to identify, recognize and reward the best and the brightest in the cybersecurity field. It’s built around the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education cybersecurity framework, which provides a comprehensive list of skills, knowledge, and abilities needed to perform cybersecurity tasks.
This year’s competition marked NCIS’ fourth time making it to the final round as well as the fourth year NCIS placed in the top 10, including a first-place finish and multiple top-3 finishes. As a result, NCIS has been invited to the White House for an award ceremony in May.
The President’s Cup tries to emulate what a cybersecurity analyst does on a daily basis but under a time constraint by giving competitors four hours to solve four challenges.
“On the defensive side of the competition you have to analyze a lot of logs and network data trying to draw conclusions about what’s happening,” he said. “That translates pretty directly to what I do in the day to day as a cyber defense analyst. But whereas the analyses I do as part of my job are continuous over the course of, maybe, years of data, the competition is meant to be an exercise.”
While he was confident about his familiarity with the material presented in the challenges, the biggest difficulty Kreuze said he faced was deciding how he was going to distribute his time across each of the four challenges.
“It’s usually kind of a gamble,” he said, “because you look at one challenge and think, ‘It’s too hard, so do I move to the next challenge, or do I sink some more time into this?’ I think I succeeded in the first round in terms of picking challenges in an order in which I could accomplish them all, but deciding where to start is probably the hardest part.”
Technology is a field that is constantly changing, and Kreuze said he believes anyone interested in cybersecurity as a career should possess an analytical mindset that will allow them to pour over lines of raw data and make conclusions about what they see, and they should be proficient in teaching themselves about new topics, tools, and trends.
He said college isn’t the only route to a career in cybersecurity. There are online resources that offer certification to become what is called an Offensive Security Certified Professional, which is a more professional way to say certified ethical hacker. However, if someone decided the go the college route, he would recommend computer science because it is more versatile than a degree in cybersecurity.
“The most important thing in my opinion is knowing how to program,” said Kreuze. “When you have all this data, you’re going to have tools to analyze it, but there will be times when there isn’t a tool available to do the type of analysis you want, so you’ll have to write your own script. Also, when you’re analyzing malware, you should have an understanding of how the software is built in order to reverse engineer it.”
Kreuze said loves his job and enjoys working with the immensely talented and skilled team at the NCIS Cyber Operations Field Office.
“Jakob is one of the most talented and driven individuals I’ve had the pleasure of working with,” said NCIS Cyber Operations Field Office Special Agent in Charge Josh Stanley. “His dedication, passion, and relentless pursuit of excellence set him apart as a true standout. A natural team player, Jakob is considered a key contributor to our success and he continues to elevate everyone around him.”