CyberPatriots compete in network security skill on international level

The CyberPatriots team, sponsored by Jason Simeon, is sending two teams of students to the national finals competition of cyber-security on March 17.
Because the team has a high number of members, they will be sending two teams to the competition to compete against each other and against other teams from all over the United States and some from Canada.
At the semi-finals cyber competition, two Marshall teams were placed in the top twelve, and therefore both teams will be competing in the national competition.
“Each team competes separately, and they’re scored, and then the scores are ranked from one to twelve,” junior Peter Marr said. Marr is part of the team that placed twelfth.
To prepare for the competition, the entire team meets every Friday after school and Saturdays to practice and prepare the skills needed to succeed in the competition.
“We’ve been trying to mimic the national competition as close as we can get it with our limited resources,” senior Peter Morrisey said. “Lately, the instructers have even been live-hacking us, since that’s what will be happening at Nationals.”
The actual competition will last for two days in Maryland at the Gaylord National Convention Center. During the competition, the floor will be open to observers who wish to watch the teams do their work.
As far as the actual competition goes, the two separate teams will work to secure a virtual computer system effectively.
“We are going to be given a series of virtual computers and asked to find security risks that are in them and then fix them so the computers are secure and can’t be hacked,” Marr said about the competition.
As to the possibility of success, the team is optimistic.
“We won first place at the last competition which had schools from all over the country,” junior Christopher Gardner said. Gardner is on the team that placed first in semi-finals.
The only other team in Fairfax County competing in nationals is Chantilly High School.