Cybersecurity Team Wins Big

The Masters Cybersecurity Team finished in the top 10 percent and third overall in New York state during round three of CyberPatriot's National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, the world's largest of its kind, on Saturday, January 23.

With seniors Matt Nappo ’21, Zach Battleman ’21 and Brandon Zazza ’21 joined by juniors Andrew Chang ’22 and Sam Felgran ’22, the team accomplished these feats by edging out more than 2,500 teams competing across the U.S., Canada and Australia.

CyberPatriot, sponsored by the U.S. Air Force Association, challenges teams of high school and middle school students to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities in virtual operating systems. After the first round of competition, teams are placed in platinum, gold or silver divisions. Masters was placed in the platinum division for the third year in a row. 
 
Each team had two challenges during each of their six-hour competition periods:

1) A network security challenge that involved finding and fixing security vulnerabilities in Windows and Linux operating systems
2) A Cisco networking challenge which consisted of an online quiz and a virtual networking exercise based on specific training materials.
 
Director of Innovation, Engineering and Computer Science and team coach John Chiodo couldn’t have been more proud of the students’ accomplishments. “We set an ambitious goal of making it into the top tier of competition, being a state award winner, and finishing in the top 10 percent overall,” he said. “Through hard work and dedication, they exceeded my every expectation.”

SHARE Article