SENTRICUS to run cyber crisis exercise for Baruch students

SENTRICUS will lead a two-hour tabletop cybersecurity exercise for Baruch College undergraduates on Aug. 13 through the school’s Tech Talent Pipeline Residency program. The simulation is designed to train students on executive, regulatory, operational and technical decisions during a fast-moving incident at a fictional financial institution.

Why it matters: - The exercise gives Baruch College students hands-on practice making decisions under pressure in a cyber crisis. - The scenario is designed to show how banking cyber incidents can affect payment systems, critical services and national resilience. - The format pushes students to balance security, business continuity, communications and regulatory obligations at the same time.

What happened: - SENTRICUS will lead a two-hour cybersecurity crisis tabletop exercise for Baruch College undergraduate students on Aug. 13 from 10 a.m. to noon in New York. - The exercise is part of Baruch College’s Tech Talent Pipeline Residency program. - Students will play executive, regulatory, operational and technical roles during a fast-moving incident at a fictional financial institution. - The exercise will be discussion-based rather than tool-driven.

The details: - As the scenario unfolds, students will get new information and must assess competing priorities. - The exercise will cover threat containment, business continuity, escalation, communications, regulatory obligations and stakeholder impact. - Harlan A. Bizzell, chief executive officer of SENTRICUS, said experiential exercises help students apply classroom knowledge when facts are incomplete and decisions have consequences. - Otuoze Baiye, founder and chief executive officer of Black Knight Risk Management, will co-facilitate the exercise. - Kermit Middleton, founder and chief executive officer of Cluster Technology Group, will also co-facilitate. - Black Knight Risk Management and Cluster Technology Group are strategic partners of SENTRICUS. - Baiye is a West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran who has served as a missile defense officer and bank examiner. - Baiye’s background includes technology, cybersecurity and risk assessments for banks and other regulated financial institutions. - Middleton is a veteran of the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps and works as a network engineer. - Middleton’s experience includes federal infrastructure modernization, firewalls, intrusion detection and cloud security platforms. - The tabletop exercise will conclude with a structured debrief on how participant decisions affected the organization’s response. - TTP Residency is a three-month program that gives competitive undergraduates on-the-job experience. - TTP Residency also connects local employers to local talent and provides industry feedback that informs curricular content across New York City schools. - SENTRICUS works with academic institutions on practitioner-led cybersecurity education, experiential learning, mentorship and career-development opportunities. - Academic departments, cyber clubs and student programs interested in hosting a tabletop exercise can contact Will Lynch at media@sentricus.com. - SENTRICUS is headquartered in Litchfield, Connecticut. - SENTRICUS provides cybersecurity education, assessments, advisory services, risk-aligned solutions and governance support. - SENTRICUS also helps organizations reduce cyber risk, strengthen compliance and govern AI responsibly. - The company’s website is sentricus.com. - The company’s LinkedIn page is LinkedIn.

Between the lines: - The exercise is built around judgment, coordination and escalation, not just technical defense. - The co-facilitators bring both military and financial-sector experience, which signals a focus on real-world incident response tradeoffs. - The program positions cybersecurity training as a bridge between classroom learning and employer expectations. - The debrief suggests the value of the exercise is not only the simulation itself, but the review of decisions afterward.

What’s next: - Baruch College students will take part in the exercise on Aug. 13. - SENTRICUS is open to hosting similar tabletop exercises for academic departments, cyber clubs and student programs. - Interested groups can reach Will Lynch at media@sentricus.com.

The bottom line: - SENTRICUS is using a banking-sector cyber crisis simulation to give students practice with the kinds of decisions that shape real incident response.