
UK_CYBERCON 2025 explores careers, cyberthreats and cybersecurity education
UK_CYBERCON 2025 brought together cybersecurity professionals, UK students, faculty and staff and community members at the University of Kentucky to highlight emerging industry trends, career paths and opportunities in the field.
The annual event hosted by University of Kentucky Information Technology Services (UK ITS) aims to make cybersecurity education more accessible by hosting multiple panels and tabling sessions, while also serving as a networking platform to engage students, cybersecurity professionals and the UK community.
UK ITS Chief Information Security Officer Stephen Burr said this year’s event featured cybersecurity experts who shared important insights in the private sector and at UK.
“Whether you’re in health care, education, or the private sector, protecting digital assets and sensitive data is critical,” Burr said. “Every job today involves technology, which means every professional should play a role in keeping systems secure. That’s why educating the public about cybersecurity is just as important as training specialists — it empowers everyone to be part of the solution.”
While artificial intelligence becomes more of an integral part of cybersecurity, sessions also focused on career advice, the state of cybersecurity at UK and offered insights into the future of the field.
Sponsored by Blackwood, CDW, Converge, Splunk, Trace3 and Kinetic, UK_CYBERCON saw more than 350 attendees — who attended poster sessions, cybersecurity panels, discussed career opportunities and internships with multiple community partners and enjoyed complimentary breakfast and lunch.
For the first time, UK_CYBERCON hosted poster sessions presented by UK students, faculty and staff — including one poster created by a local high-school student, Naji Abdeldayem.
“I had the amazing opportunity to attend University of Kentucky CyberCon 2025, where I presented my poster on USB risks during the poster session,” he said. “It was my first-ever presentation to a large university audience as a high school student! I learned so much and gained valuable experience that I’ll carry forward in my cybersecurity journey.”
ITS Technology Manager Kirk Laird organized UK_CYBERCON’s poster sessions.
“I enjoyed connecting with so many people who are passionate about sharing cybersecurity education,” he said. “I was especially honored to host the poster session, where students, partners and faculty showcased cutting-edge research and practical applications. It was incredibly inspiring to witness the next generation of cybersecurity talent in action.”
During a career panel, representatives from Blackwood, Pellara, Cisco, Fortinet, Trace3 and Uniti Solutions shared guidance on internships, cybersecurity certifications and strategies for identifying individual interests within the cybersecurity field.
UK senior and cybersecurity engineering student Ayah Abdeldayem participated in UK_CYBERCON for the third year. Initially, Abdeldayem became interested in cybersecurity after taking a UK computer science course.
“I had the opportunity to talk about my journey in cybersecurity, what my day-to-day looks like in my role and talk about my experiences at Lexmark,” Abdeldayem said. “I also got to answer some great questions from students exploring tech careers — having family, friends and professors there to support me made it even more meaningful.”
UK ITS and UK HealthCare IT hosted a panel discussion on the state of cybersecurity at the university.
“We discussed the complexity of the UK and UKHC environments and shared strategies to educate the audience on how we secure and defend the university and its health care system from cyber threats,” said Senior Information Security Analyst with UKHC IT Jenny Gregory.
“Beyond institutional insights, we helped attendees understand how they can better protect themselves and those they care about from cyber threats — like updating end-of-life hardware, patching vulnerabilities, using password managers and implementing multi-factor authentication.”
Sign up for UK ITS news, alerts and tech tips by visiting: https://its.uky.edu/engage/uk-its-communications. You can also follow UK ITS on social media: https://linktr.ee/its_uky and listen to our new podcast TechKnow: https://its.uky.edu/techknow.