JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas –
Students at Randolph High School will be putting their
computer skills to the test against schools from across the U.S. and Canada in
an online cybersecurity competition that begins in November.
The team of six Randolph High School students are preparing
for the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition. CyberPatriot is
an online competition of several rounds in which high school and middle school
teams compete for a chance to go to the national finals in Baltimore in April.
The competition is put on by the Air Force Association.
RHS team members are Will Watkins, Austin Hahn, Ian
Murawski, Zack Nelson, Joshua Huffman and Sabrina Williams.
First round of the CyberPatriot competition is Nov. 13-15.
Ana Arrieta, Randolph High School business and technology
teacher and CyberPatriot team coach, said the teams in the competition must
come up with a plan to defend a virtual computer network with security breaches
from a cyber attack, including against hackers, spyware, adware, worms and
viruses. The teams must solve the security problems with the network in a
six-hour period.
“Teams are awarded points based on how quickly they fix the
cybersecurity problems within the computer network,” Arrieta said.
Watkins, RHS senior, said the students are given information
on the problems with the computer network and based on that information come up
with a plan to fix it.
“Our job is to make sure the computer is free of anything
that could be used to cause harm to the computer,” Watkins said.
Watkins has been a CyberPatriot team member since his
freshman year at Randolph, when he and a friend went to the meeting that
started the CyberPatriot competition program at the school.
“We thought it was a great idea and we were hooked,” Watkins
said. “I’ve learned a quite few things from this competition. I’ve used
CyberPatriot as a learning tool. I’ve learned how to set up servers and manage
firewalls, as well as how to better run anti-virus software and how to better
secure a computer.”
Watkins said his goal is for the Randolph team to make it
through the first two rounds of the competition and qualify for the state round
in January. Schools that make it out of state advance to the regional round in
February. The 12 top high schools in the regional round qualify for the
national finals.
“We have a good team of people who were here last year,”
Watkins said. “I’m hoping with the know-how of the veterans on the team and the
fresh ideas and fresh thinking of the new team members, we can make it to state
and nationals.”
Huffman, RHS senior,
is a first year member of the CyberPatriot team. Huffman said he has
studied computer programming and that being on the team is allowing him to
expand his knowledge of computers, especially in the field of cybersecurity.
“It’s good to have a little bit of experience in both
fields,” Huffman said.
Retired Air Force master sergeant Douglas Nelson is the
team’s technical mentor and helps the team with technical aspects of the
competition.
Arrieta said CyberPatriot is part of the National Youth
Cyber Education Program, which was set up to get more high school and middle
school students interested in the field of cybersecurity.
“Right now in the field of cybersecurity there are not
enough people working in it,” Arrieta said. “To me this is one of the most
important career fields they can get interested in. It is one of those fields
that is important for our nation’s security.”
The team will be doing a practice round for the competition.
The practice round started Tuesday and runs through Oct. 27.