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The CAE designation, jointly sponsored by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, recognizes that Bloomsburg’s digital forensics program has met stringent criteria in regard to its digital forensics curriculum, faculty and research, as well as demonstrated an institution-wide commitment to information assurance practices and cyber defense education.

For details on the courses required, please see the Center of Academic Excellence. Students attending CAE-designated schools become eligible to apply for related scholarships and grants through the Federal Cyber Service Scholarship for Service Program.

CU has been designated a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education by the National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security.

It is one of the top Digital Forensics and Cyber-Security Programs in the country. Classrooms and labs have professional digital forensics software and hardware. Courses cover all aspects of digital forensics and security.

91´óÉñÊÓƵ has five excellent and well-known faculty members dedicated to teaching courses in this field of study. They come with practical experience and deep knowledge in digital forensics, criminal investigations, network security and forensics, system security, and penetration testing.

Digital Forensics graduates have an extremely high placement rate.  They work in law enforcement, government agencies, and the corporate world.  Graduates work at many major defense contractors, such as General Dynamics, Lockheed, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mantech, Leidos, SAIC, Bechtel, Textron, and CACI.  Corporate employees include CrowdStrike, Dell SecureWorks, Pfizer, Airbnb, Home Shopping Network, FireEye, Mandiant, Verizon, LDiscovery, KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, and Epiq Systems.

Graduates work at governmental agencies concerned with national security such as the National Security Agency (NSA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade.

Law enforcement employers include local law enforcement, sheriff’s departments, district attorney’s offices, attorney general’s offices, and state police agencies.

If you have an active security clearance, you will be appealing to many of the companies and agencies listed above.  There are separate job fairs just for veterans and just for people with security clearances.  If you have an active clearance, there is a 100% placement rate.

Our graduates do important work such as: Investigating hacking from foreign nations against the US, analyzing terrorist hard disks and other media for the war on terror, and offensively hacking foreign governments to protect the US.

Please note: All meetings are listed in order with a brief synopsis of what each "was."

Semester One (Fall 2025)

1. Introductory Meeting – How-tos, what we do, about us, etc.
2. HackTheBox / Pentesting Night – Specifically, the "Editor" competition. Writeup provided by exec board. Web server / shell exploitation.
3. Nintendo3DS Forensics Analysis – Finding locations, user IDs, playtime, etc. on a video game console
4. Professional Development Night – With the head of COHST Professional Development department, Wren Fritsky. How to network, setup a LinkedIn, and make a good resume
5. Enterprise Hardware – How to conduct routine hardware / system maintenance in enterprise environments, basic data recovery procedures, and general "sys-admin" tasks
6. Drive Cloning – Best forensically sound procedures, including hands-on experience with write blockers, verifying checksums, and forensic imaging
7. Networking Night – How to configure VLANS, bridges, firewall rules on OPNsense, testing firewall rules with Suricata and IDS, and experience conducting manual subnetting
8. Additional Enterprise Hardware Night – Tying up loose ends, demonstrating the proper way to mount equipment on racks, best cable management practices, etc. (break week)
9. Linux from Scratch – How to build a fully functional desktop environment on Linux with nothing but CLI and TTY access on RPM based system
10. End of Semester Review – Class review, question and answer session, study help, etc.

Semester Two (Spring 2026)

1. OSINT night – How to find information, on both public and hidden networks. Including FTP, SMTP, and IRC reconnaissance, how to use DIG and WHOIS, checking certificate validity, etc.
2. Dark Web Surfing Night – How to keep your information safe from leaks, and how to find information from illegal data breaches. Including ahmia, torch.net, doxbin, and other data collection sites. Tor and I2P were also discussed, as well as best practices for dark web browsing
3. Networking Night – Featuring alumnus Emily Dobson (current lead of Bsides Philly) - proper conference etiquette, how to initiate conversation, make connections, and leave impressions on potential employers
4. Skipped – Due to our own Cybersecurity conference being held in just two days, BloomCON!
5. DDoS Night – How to exploit web and file servers, and how slowing down connections can tell you about the security of the server in question. Introduction to slowloris, apachebenchmark, and more
6. Scripting Night – How to read and create basic scripts in langs other than Python (specifically, powershell, ruby, and bash) – Best practices for reading and opening files with concurrency
7. Meeting with Alumnus Brian Stofz – expert forensics analyst, discussing some of his most famous cracked cases, including advice on how to enter the forensics industry from both a public and private sector perspective, and maintaining ISO / IEC compliance
8. HackTheBox Night – Featuring a new walkthrough, including an introduction to container escapes, RPC hijacking, and packet injection.
9. Meeting with Alumnus Tyler Lobos – Regarding the differences between consulting and government contracting, which is better for which specific kinds of people, and what to expect from a "day in the life" from each
10. Meeting with Alumnus Hakeem Thomas – How to maximize your income in a hypercompetitive field. Advice on how to beat the AI resume review machines, landing your dream job, and the benefits of homelabbing (including examples of homelabbing projects to boost your resume and make an impression on recruiters)
11. Officer Election Night – Mandated by University and CGA.
12. Dance Dance Revolution Night (Break Week) – Give everyone something fun and entertaining to do the week before finals. End the year with something memorable and unique.

• Advanced Intelligence, LLC
• Berks County District Attorney’s Office
• Boston Police Department
• Dauphin County Criminal Investigation Division
• Delaware County Office of DA
• Deloitte
• Delsite Consulting
• Department of Homeland Security
• Evangelical Community Hospital
• Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division
• FireEye
• Geisinger Medical Center
• JPMorgan Chase
• LDiscovery
• Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School
• Lockheed Martin
• Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office
• National Security Agency
• National Security Consulting & Investigating PLLC
• nDepth Security LLC
• OpenText
• Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• PPL Electric Utilities
• Revolutionary Security
• Select Medical
• SUMURI LLC
• The Crypsis Group
• The Washington Center
• T-Mobile
• Top Notch Distributors, Inc.
• Underwriters Laboratories
• US Army
• US Bank
• USN Naval Surface Warfare Center Port Hueneme Division
• Verizon
• VMWare
• Weis Markets