This past week, six Texas A&M students attended the National Cyber Summit and competed in the National Cyber Cup in Huntsville, AL. Andrew Meserole, Nick March, Shota Ehrlich, Casey Stephens, John Zenick, and George Zenner were accompianed by Texas A&M Cybersecurity Center Director, Dr. Daniel Ragsdale. This year’s conference was attended by over 1500 attendees, and featured over 60 speakers, with events focusing on “cyber training, education and workforce development aimed at protecting our nation’s infrastructure from the ever-evolving cyber threat”. More information about the conference can be found on NCS’ Website.
The attending Texas A&M students formed 2 three-person teams to compete in the National Cyber Cup, sponsored by Deloitte. This team challenge was a four-hour jeopardy-style capture the flag style competition, which allows competitors to simulate their responses to cybersecurity threats likely to be faced in the workforce. These students competed against 38 other teams, both student and professional, in this capture the flag tournament, placing first and fourth. Our winning team was made up of Andrew Meserole, Nick March, and Shota Ehrlich, who were able to take home $5000 in prize money.
Team Captain, Andrew Meserole told us it is “always more fun to compete as a team and in person, versus the typical online, virtual competitions. My teammates were instrumental to our success, and we would like to send a huge thank you to Deloitte and the National Cyber Summit for seamlessly executing this event”.
Our small group of Aggies surely made their presence known at this year’s conference, and we could not be more proud of them!