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Nationals for the Cyberpatriots

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  Blood, sweat, and tears went once more into nationals, not for basketball or golf, but for Cyberpatriots. From April 15 to 19, three of HR’s Cyberpatriots teams went to nationals, in Baltimore, Maryland, to compete against 11 other open division teams.

  Cyberpatriots are not “hackers”, more like the clean up crew of the computer world. They take systems and patch any weak spots to stop any attacks from happening. The Cyberpatriots program has a National Youth Cyber Defense Competition for high school and middle school-aged youth, Cyber Camps, and an Elementary School Education initiative.

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This is how the open division works. Photo courtesy www.uscyberpatriot.org

  Any school can have a Cyberpatriots team, but few can make it to the top. HR has four teams in total. Compared to some schools, this is few. North Hollywood High School had 20 teams, three of which received first, second, and third place of the Open Division.

  Like many other nationals, the team with the most points wins. The way to earn points for Cyberpatriots is to strengthen a system by patching any of its flaws. To do this, teams are given virtual machine images, which is basically a virtual computer. Then the teams have certain servers, services, and databases that must be ready to run by the end of the competition, and if they are not operational, they will lose points. Finding the flaws in the system is up to the team, as the flaws and weak points are not listed.

  ”The whole experience was really surreal,” said Austin Grandpre, junior and member of Falcon Transfer Protocol. “It is cool to see you jamming with a bunch of other kids who are doing IT security, and to see who can secure images the best and keep people out.”

  The three teams that made it were Falcon Transfer Protocol, Control Alt Falcons, and Falcon.zip. Falcon Transfer Protocol made it the furthest, up to the top 12 for the national finals competition.

Jordan Rust, Print Design Editor

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Nationals for the Cyberpatriots