Cybersecurity students finish in top tier of national competition

Cybersecurity students finish in top tier of national competition

Northwest Missouri State University computer science students recently put their skills to the test by participating in a national cybersecurity competition and placed themselves in the top 10 percent.

Two teams of Northwest students competed in November in the National Cyber League's Team Game, a weekend-long event that tested teams of up to seven people to solve as many challenges as possible.

Competing with 4,215 teams, a Northwest team of Addison Rinehart, Kai Crabb, Juvaan Sabaroche, Elijah Carney and Alex Farar finished at No. 150. The other Northwest team - consisting of students Ash Atwell, Liz Norris, Brice Moeller, Gage Bergschneider and Pavlo Vysotin - finished at No. 378.

The Northwest students, who are members of the University's Cyber Defense Club, competed on skills that included open source intelligence, enumeration, web app exploitation and password cracking.

Atwell, a junior computer science and cybersecurity major from Kansas City, Missouri, who also serves as president of the club, noted most of the Northwest competitors had little to no experience in a cyber contest.

"I am more than grateful to have the opportunity to help the Cyber Defense Club grow and, in turn, myself," Atwell said. "The organization has given me many opportunities to dive into topics and create events and labs for the members to enjoy."

Although they began working through the contest challenges individually during the first day of competition, Crabb, a senior computer science and cybersecurity major from Lincoln, Nebraska, and his teammates opted to work together during the Saturday portion, spending almost the entire day in a Colden Hall computing lab.

"I didn't really know what to expect," said Crabb, who was competing for the first time. "I was like, 'I might as well just start taking a crack at these questions,' and then … you become addicted to like, 'Can I solve it?'

The challenges became increasingly difficult as the weekend progressed.

"We think that if we sharpen up our skills in some areas, such as password cracking and enumeration, we could get into the top 100 in the spring game next semester," Crabb said. "Overall, we're really proud of all our members who participated and are happy that we have started participating in competitions again as a club."

Crabb said the competition illustrated how well the University has prepared him to be productive in the cyber field. He developed his knowledge through courses that lay a foundation for students through analysis of network logs, secure system administration and other fundamentals of computing.

"We don't realize as students how much we're actually learning from the start to the finish," Crabb said. "You can definitely tell how much you've learned, especially as a senior. I didn't know this stuff as a freshman. I had no idea what an IP address was, and now I'm looking through the network logs; I'm looking for the specific thing and there it is."

Additionally, Crabb is working his third internship, now as an information security analyst intern with Symplr, a healthcare platform. Before that, he completed internships with Schoular, which specializes in agricultural supply chain solutions, at its help desk and as an application development intern.

After completing his degree at Northwest in the spring, he wants to pursue a career in software engineering or software development.

"Classes give what you need to know, and then, as an individual, you need to go out and expand on those skills," Crabb said. "That's kind of what this competition pushes - go out and expand on these skills because you can get the easy ones, but we want you to start being able to go to the medium and hard ones and be like 'OK, this is our game plan, and this is how we're gonna solve it.'"