Crimson Defense Blog

2024-2025 Recap

Posted on June 12, 2025

2024-2025 was a big year for Crimson Defense. We were home to 50 members representing eight different majors and seventeen different minors! This statistic just goes to show—anyone can do cyber, not just cyber majors!

Our Competition Team saw immense success over the last two semesters, setting club records! Special recognition is given to freshman Benjamin Swartley for his stellar performance in the National Cyber League Competition. He was selected to receive the Excellence in Cyber Security Award from the UA Computer Science Department! You can see the full list of Comp Team achievements on our Comp Team page.

Three students achieved their CompTIA Security+ Certification this year, congratulations! See how Crimson Defense can help you get the professional certs you need on our new Certs page.

UACTF was a huge success this year, being the largest competition CD has ever held! We hosted over 80 teams from across the country, from California to Florida and every state in between. This was also the debut of our Division 3 Bracket, which allows middle school students to engage with cyber too. Congratulations to our Volunteer of the Year, Kit Elsasser! Special recognition must go to Andrew McNeil, who was recognized by UA's Computer Science Department with the Outstanding Service in Cyber Security Award for his contributions to UACTF.

We are so proud of our Spring 2025 graduating seniors, two achieved Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science with a Concentration in Cyber Security, and one achieved their Master of Science in Computer Science. We will miss you, best of luck with all your future endeavors!

• B.S. in Computer Science: J.T. Adams
• B.S. in Computer Science: Orion Gregory
• M.S. in Computer Science: Anna Graves

Crimson Defense's Officers eagerly await this upcoming Fall, we've got so much more planned for all of our new and returning members! Have a great summer and Roll Tide!

UA Ranks 18th Nationally in Cyber

Posted on May 9, 2025

National Cyber League posted their Cyber Power Rankings for the Spring 2025 Season. The University of Alabama earned 18th place nationally and 5th place among Eastern colleges! This is the highest that UA has ever placed, going up from 25th place nationally last Fall.

NCL's Cyber Power Rankings measure the ability of students at each college/university in relation to cyber security related skills. Through the NCL Competition, students must solve challenges that require skills such as web traffic analysis, website pentesting, digital forensics, and more. The Power Rankings use the students' performances to determine the strength of each school's student's abilities.

Crimson Defense members consistently compete in NCL, and are the dominant group of University of Alabama participants. Thank you to all our members who competed! It is thanks to you all that we achieved this feat.

Check out the official Power Rankings list from NCL.