Miles Alford

About

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Cybersecurity student at Penn State pursuing dual B.S. degrees in Cybersecurity Analytics & Operations and AI Methods & Applications (3.81 GPA). Hands-on experience in penetration testing, network defense, and cloud infrastructure, with a 1st-place Capture the Flag (CTF) win and a 4th-place national finish in the National Cyber League (NCL) Spring 2026. Teaching Assistant supporting 60 students in CYBER 100.

What I work on

Security. Penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, log analysis, and system hardening — practiced both in coursework and across 20+ competitive events with Penn State’s Competitive Cyber Security Organization.

Competitions

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Competing with Penn State CCSO (Competitive Cyber Security Organization), 2025 – Present. 20+ events to date.

Highlights

Event	Result
SillyCTF 2 (2026)	1st Place
HiveCTF	2nd among academic teams, 5th globally
National Cyber League (NCL) Spring 2026	4th nationally (team)
Road to CyberBay 2026	10th of ~400 teams
Hack The Madness 2026	Top 32
US Cyber Games Combine 2026	Competed
CCSO Internal Red vs. Blue (2025)	3rd Place
NCAE Cyber Games 2026	6th of 12

Road to CyberBay covered cryptography, digital forensics, and web exploitation. The CCSO internal Red vs. Blue ran both offense and defense.

Education & Honors

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The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA — College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST)

B.S. Cybersecurity Analytics & Operations B.S. Artificial Intelligence Methods & Applications

Started Fall 2025 · Second-year student · Expected graduation 2029 · GPA 3.81

Honors & Awards

Robert C. Jubelirer Trustee Scholarship, College of IST (2026–2027) — competitive, merit-based, endowed by Senator & Judge Robert and Renee Jubelirer
Dean’s List — Fall 2025, Spring 2026

Most relevant coursework

Information Security · Cyber Defense Studio · Security & Risk Analysis · Networking & Telecommunications · Data Structures · Discrete Math · Databases · Object-Oriented Programming · Artificial Intelligence

Experience

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Teaching Assistant — CYBER 100 (Computer Systems Literacy)

Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology — University Park, PA Jan 2026 – Present · Supervising professor: Ed Glantz

Guides 60 students through hands-on labs on system hardening and vulnerability scanning
Holds one-on-one office hours for struggling students, troubleshooting technical issues and clarifying concepts
Collaborates with Professor Glantz to refine lab exercises for clarity and learning outcomes

Cloud Systems Administrator

Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization (CCSO) — University Park, PA 2025 – Present

Projects

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Most of what follows is public on github.com/zarnuq; private work is marked as such.

netdash

Go · private repository

A self-hosted homepage that doubles as a hand-authored, live network map. One KDL file describes every host and how they connect; a small Go server probes each one and serves two views off the same status feed — a dashboard of service tiles with status lights and uptime percentages, and a map, an auto-laid-out topology graph derived from how hosts uplink into each other. Nodes turn red in both views the moment a check fails.

Skills

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Languages

Python · Go · C++ · SQL · Java · Zig · Bash/Shell

Operating Systems

Linux (CLI) · Gentoo Linux · Kali Linux · Windows · Windows Active Directory

Cloud & Infrastructure

OpenStack (incl. Heat orchestration templates) · Kubernetes · Ceph · Ansible · OPNsense · Docker · SQLite · Git

Security Tools

Nmap · Wireshark · Metasploit · Burp Suite · Snort · Hydra · Hashcat · Gobuster