Cybersecurity Clinic

Student Engagement / Current Projects 

Students actively contribute to real-world projects, gaining hands-on experience while supporting organizational partners, directed by experienced faculty. 

• K-12 Cybersecurity Partnership: CORE partnered with Arkansas K-12 school districts to strengthen cybersecurity posture ensuring NIST 800-53 compliance in accordance with ACT 504 and related student privacy requirements. Through assessment, policy guidance, and student focused initiatives, we help Arkansas’ schools protect sensitive data, maintain secure learning environments, and implement best practices in digital safety. 
•  Krypteia Platform  Development: CORE is developing Krypteia, which is an AI-assisted threat hunting platform that enables cybersecurity clinic students to extract key threat profile features for attack simulations. Students are also able to leverage AI-driven models to identify optimal counter-defense strategies for organizations of all sizes.
• Threat Profiling with MITRE ATT&CK: At CORE, our researchers apply the MITRE ATT&CK framework to build detailed threat profiles that map real-world adversary behaviors against operational environments. This project identifies the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) most relevant to critical sectors in Arkansas. This allows a clear visibility into potential attack vectors, understanding of threat landscapes, and actionable insights for defense planning and training. This hands-on experience equips them with cutting-edge skills in cyber threat intelligence and red/blue team operations.
• Vulnerability Research- Known Exploited Vulnerability Catalog (KEVC): CORE researchers and students build a central database of high-risk vulnerabilities leveraging Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) KEVC to track and analyze high-impact security flaws. This project focuses on cataloging exploited vulnerabilities, mapping them to affected systems, and identifying their potential impact on organizations across Arkansas. Students gain practical skills in vulnerability management, risk analysis, and applied cybersecurity research.
• Attack Path Modeling: CORE is advancing research in attack path modeling to simulate how adversaries move through networks and exploit vulnerabilities to reach critical assets. By combining vulnerability data, system dependencies, and adversary tactics, we create visualized models of potential attack paths that organizations face. Students are immersed in designing and testing attack path models, applying real-world threat intelligence, and validating their findings against simulated environments. This hands-on modeling equips them with advancing analytical skills and allows them to understand how threat actors compromise systems or networks. 
• Remediation Recommendation: CORE translates research findings from threat profiling, vulnerability research, and attack path modeling into actionable remediation strategies. This project ensures insights don’t remain theoretical but instead drive meaningful improvements to security postures. Students deliver tailored mitigation strategies aligned with organizational risk levels, support compliance of federal and state cybersecurity standards, and create practical defense playbooks that can be applied. This provides students with real-world consulting and problem-solving experience directly applicable to workforce readiness. 
• Organizational Threat & Vulnerability Assessments: The CORE Cybersecurity Clinic provides comprehensive Threat and Vulnerability Assessment (TVA) to evaluate an organization’s cybersecurity posture. These TVA’s identify external exposure, accessible services, and detect potential risk using publicly available threat intelligence and open-source data. This assessment delivers an overall cybersecurity posture overview, highlights vulnerabilities and provides actionable recommendations to help organizations mitigate threats and strengthen their digital defenses.  
• Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE): We’re creating cutting-edge courses that combine virtual reality and real industry hardware to train the next generation of engineers. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, our curriculum will be shared with community colleges and beyond, empowering schools to deliver immersive, hands-on learning in cyber-informed engineering.