CyberPatriot excelled in their first competition round, with one team finishing first out of all Colorado teams and placing 60th worldwide out of 2975 teams who competed. Two teams also placed in the top 3 for Colorado, while the four other teams placed top 10 in state. Colorado is known for their competitive CyberPatriot teams, so the top placements stand out even more considering their competition.
The rounds supply members with two systems to fix and find issues with, and a quiz to solve. Each team splits up their members to handle each activity, a Windows group, a Linux group, and a Networking group. The Windows and Linux tasks are similar, tasking them with fixing issues of the system. Requiring them to go through policies, users, files, firewalls and more. Linux varies from Windows with how the system face is different, having them manually edit files for permissions and going more in depth. The Networking tasks revolve around a quiz with questions for them to answer. In total, tasks are worth 100 points, but around 50 points are easy to find.
Some tasks require them to do things that wouldn’t normally be expected. “We had to play a super old game for a code, and I was scouring 8 year old wikis and chats about it while Caleb was trying to figure out how to even beat the game,” said Jacob Caperton (12).
The club benefits students in many ways, helping build skills like teamwork, communication, proactive thinking, and problem solving,
Caleb Borlin (12) said, “When you see the forensic questions it isn’t just about knowing what they say to do, it’s about your approach and how you could do it.”
One issue that required problem solving during the first round for the winning team, “One Phish,” was the lack of half of their team. An issue that they solved by working together as a team more effectively and collaborating with the other teams on tasks they might have overlooked. The teams all provide help to each other, helping to form a strong community.
Smith Barrionuevo (12) said, “I only joined last year, because I didn’t even know the club existed, but the atmosphere of the club is so inviting and relaxing.” Mr. Errickson, the sponsor of the club, provides the students with snacks and an atmosphere of creativity. Which allows the students to be able to excel and focus on their practice tasks.
In the next two weeks, two more rounds will happen. The current first place team remains hopeful that they will continue their lead in the future rounds.
