HCPSS Students Among State’s Best in Cybersecurity Competition

October 28th, 2014

Student teams from the HCPSS Cybersecurity Networking Academy finished among the ten best in the state of Maryland during the opening round of the Air Force Association’s Annual National Cyber Youth Defense Competition, held on Oct. 24 at the HCPSS Applications and Research Laboratory.

More than 1200 teams competed in the opening round of competition, which required participants to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities in a virtual operating systems (Windows 7 and Server 2008) while maintaining operations over a six-hour period. In total, five student teams from the ARL Cybersecurity Networking Academy pursuing their Cisco CCNA and CompTIA Security+ will begin the second round of competition on Nov. 14. These teams were led by Cybersecurity Networking Academy Instructors, Vipul Savalia and Brian Taylor.

Winners who advance beyond state and regional rounds will earn all-expense paid trips to Washington D.C. to compete in the March 2015 national finals.

First place opening round winners include Glenelg High School’s Alexander Sidell, Keegan Daly, Dominick Beck and Andrew Rodriguez; Marriotts Ridge High School’s Jadee Remondini and Matthew Parker; Howard High School’s Alexander Daro and Jake Dustin, Long Reach High School’s Sean Semenkow and Mitchell Yum; Reservoir High School’s Matthew Jackson and Centennial High School’s Dong il Seo.