Select students from the JROTC class competed in the CyberPatriot State Competition on Jan. 13. The competition challenges students to identify vulnerabilities in computers and networks.

“The competition places teams of high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired IT professionals,” retired USAF Master Sergeant David Loyd said. “Teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems and are tasked with finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the images and hardening the system while maintaining critical services in a six hour period.”

Loyd said that students are in a continual state of preparation, as new vulnerabilities are constantly added.

“We look at the basics to Windows security,” senior Ryan Ong said. “They challenge us to figure out what went wrong on a simulated computer and how to fix it.”

The competition is ranked on a tier system with silver being the lowest, then gold, and then platinum being the highest. Ong’s team went platinum.

“Platinum goes to Washington D.C., gold goes to state, and silver stays in the region.” Ong said.

Ong said if he had to compete again he’d get his hands on all the training and educational material possible. There was also an online course the students could take, but none of them were able to find the time to get around to it.

“Our country is severely lacking in cyber security,” sophomore Jackson Arnecke said. “The military is starting to open many careers in it.”

Arnecke’s team hasn’t gotten their results back yet, but in previous competitions they placed in the silver tier.

“Most of my team’s challenge was just waiting for things to scan, so it could get boring,” Arnecke said. “My favorite part was probably the pizza and Dr. Pepper they gave us.”

Other students were highly engaged throughout the whole process.

“It’s really satisfying to hear the points notification and knowing you did something right,” Ong said.

Arnecke said most of his team’s time was spent working on one situation that they just couldn’t get right. If he could redo anything, he wished he could have done more research on the issue ahead of time.

“I would like to commend the Captain of the team, Aaron Loyd as well Ryan Ong,” Loyd said. “Both have been largely responsible for the increase in the number of teams and in scores over the last four years.”