Hailey Allmann, Chris Ardoin, Mike Ayuso and Rylie Malbrough
As industry systems continue to integrate newer technologies into legacy Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Operational Technology (OT), the need for accurate and reliable monitoring systems is crucial to avoiding large-scale operational and cybersecurity issues. The ICS Anomaly Detection System combines the scalability and flexibility of a cloud-based architecture with real-time sensor data ingestion and anomaly detection to create a reliable dashboard that aggregates operational metrics and highlights abnormal behavior. This project simulates industry equipment using a Raspberry Pi and various environmental sensors, utilizing Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services including Pub/Sub, BigQuery, Cloud Functions, and Looker Studio. Sensor data is published to Pub/Sub, routed through strict content, semantic, and schema validation, and then ingested into BigQuery, where it is queried for anomalies using threshold based rules to identify major deviations. Historical data, error codes, and anomalies are visualized in a real-time dashboard for end users, and system administrators are alerted to anomalies as soon as they are detected via automated emails. This project will offer a replicable, low-cost model for cybersecurity, illustrating how rule-based anomaly detection and serverless design can be applied to ICS systems and expanded in future research toward streaming or ML-based detection.
Sadie Ann, Isabella Breaux, April Gauthreaux, McKinley Humble
Dr. Brad Glisson
As the digital world continues to expand, younger generations increasingly need cybersecurity literacy, yet education in this area struggles to keep pace with their growing exposure to online risks. Cybersecurity concepts are often taught primarily to upper-level students, leaving younger audiences without a strong foundational understanding and more vulnerable to digital threats. Escape the Cyberspace addresses this gap by introducing younger learners to cybersecurity concepts in an engaging and accessible way, while also sparking their interest in the field and demonstrating what cybersecurity involves in practice. This is achieved by transforming traditional lecture-based instruction into an immersive, narrative-driven virtual reality (VR) escape room experience. The final product is a functional VR escape room game that provides a fun, high-engagement environment for learning foundational cybersecurity skills.
Memphis Dalme, John Feet, Issac Kim, CJ Sturiale and Isaiah Thigpen
Champion Technology Services
Joe Driver; OT Solutions Manager
Mason Sanchez; OT Solutions Specialist
Industrial plants often have hundreds to thousands of PLCs, HMIs, and other OT/ICS equipment. Also, many of the devices still in use are extremely old, meaning they were not built with proper cybersecurity principles and often crash when tested. This makes identifying cyber security vulnerabilities in an industrial plant is extremely difficult because of the sheer number of devices on an OT Network, the outdated security measures, and the sensitivity to testing. The OT Reddish was designed to be a quick and passive scanner that help identify vulnerabilities in an industrial plant without interfering with operations. It is also easy to use as it is a plug-and-play device with a friendly user interface. The OT Reddish works by using various network scanning techniques, through optimized password cracking, and vulnerability databases. Simply plug the Reddish into the network switch and quickly identify OT security vulnerabilities in a safe and effective manner.
Caiden Ledet, Cole Sylvester, Bailie Bourque, Xavier Lewis
Dr. Miguel Gates
Insider data leaks are one of the biggest problems within cybersecurity today. Whether
accidental or intentional, these data leaks can cost a company large sums of money
and resources. Currently, document systems focus on limiting access to users rather
than providing traceability measures. Our Leak Proof Watermark System aims to prevent
and catch insider threats by tying their information to a hidden watermark embedded
within each confidential document. Our system is fully hosted on a Raspberry Pi, with
the initial layer of the system being a Samba SMB file server. This server communicates
with the backend of the system, implemented using Python and Django. The backend of
our system hosts a SQLite database that contains an immutable logging system, along
with the code for our watermark algorithms. Within our frontend, created using JavaScript
and React, employees can interface with the file server, encrypting the documents
that they access upon download. The frontend also allows administrators to manage
access control, upload documents to the server, and decrypt recovered documents to
find the party responsible for the leak. This system will help companies keep their
information safe and pinpoint the source of a data leak, saving valuable time, money,
and resources.
Jake Smith, Dominic Rosario, Connor Heard, Bailey Travis, Hazem Alsabagh
Cleco, LLC
Russell Reynolds: Enterprise Security Analyst IV
Jeremy Smith: Director - Cyber Security & CISO
Dr. Miguel Gates
Operational Technology and Industrial Control Systems are essential to critical infrastructure such as power grids, manufacturing systems, and water treatment facilities. However, these environments face increasing cyber threats from advanced attackers. Because most OT networks are isolated from the internet for safety reasons, it is difficult to study real attacks without risking the security of live operational systems. This project addresses this gap by designing an OT honeynet that safely attracts and observes attackers targeting industrial control technologies. Open-source security and monitoring tools capture attacker activity. A visualization interface allows analysts to view attacker behavior and understand the sequence of events during an intrusion attempt. Furthermore, the environment is completely reproducible, utilizing automated infrastructure-as-code to allow organizations to seamlessly deploy the platform. By providing a secure, heavily monitored sandbox for studying OT-focused attacks, this platform significantly improves the understanding of adversary tactics and supports the proactive development of stronger cybersecurity strategies for critical infrastructure.