WHS’s Cyber Security Club is an accomplished team that focuses on cyber defense and attack. The club has membership offering anyone regardless of skill a welcoming environment where students can develop their skills. Recently, the team had first place finishes at the state level of the National CyberPatriot XV competition.
“[CyberPatriot XV] is a national competition hosted by the Air Force [Association]. [The competition] focused on how to secure operating systems and machines,” junior Siyang Ding and president of the Cyber Security club said. “Oftentimes we face things like exploits and back doors and it’s our job to ensure that if there is a recursive process we are going to terminate it, [creating] a higher standard of security.”
For this tournament, teams first went through two rounds of competition that were open to all schools and programs in order to test their abilities. The top 30% of teams were entered into the platinum division, the median 40% were placed in gold, and the bottom 30% were placed in silver. WHS’s club sent two teams to compete, and after the initial rounds they were placed in the platinum and gold levels.
“The more experienced team is Team A, and the other team is the B team. Both teams are really good,” said junior and vice president of the Cyber Security Club Thomas Li. “The A Team [placed] first in the state in the highest division, and the B team also won first place in the second best division, the gold division.” These results led to participation in the national semi-final competition.
One important aspect of the club and a key to its ongoing success is its inclusivity; any interested student, whether knowledgeable about Cyber Security or not, can participate in some form.
“The club is actually very open; anyone can join, regardless of previous background. All it takes is your involvement in one competition,” said Ding. “We have many different mentors that can help out in various ways, like sometimes we do offensive cyber capabilities, not just defense.”
Developing a new club member’s skills is more complicated than just teaching them everything. Offensive skills like SQL injection – sending code via a query into a database to damage or destroy it – are just as important as defensive skills like Windows PowerShell – a script engine and language that allows IT professionals to configure computers and automate tasks.
“We focus a lot on people’s niche. When somebody is really good at one particular skill like SQL injection and maybe somebody else is really good at Windows PowerShell, we find our specific niche and then we just piece them together,” said Ding. “When everyone knows a little bit of something really deep, we can then piece them together and win.”
While the club’s inclusivity allows anyone to join the team, developing the needed skills requires some members to work really hard in order to participate on either the A or B team.
“Because of the high level of competition, there’s also a lot of time that needs to be dedicated individually,” said Li “A lot of times we can assign homework to help each person improve by a certain amount, and we’re very regimented. Each week you have to work on it vigorously.”
The team works on challenges to improve their cyber security skills and to teach them what to look for in competitions and problems.
“There’s a series of games [we] get online, and they offer you roles to gain more understanding on how operations work and learning what loopholes are,” said Michael Sanford, advisor of the Cyber Security Club and WHS’s technology integration specialist. “You can get in and try to compete against each other and compare how well you do on tests.”
Members also work toward earning the Global Information Assurance Certification [GIAC], which allows students to get a nationally recognized certification to prove their skills to employers.
“The GIAC provides industry proof insurance of one’s skill in cyber security,” said Li. “It helps anyone stand out from other applicants.”
The Cyber Security Club is focused on staying competitive and improving as a team with dedication.
“Cyber Security is all about work. You just have to put in the work and you’ll get results, and that really reflects life in general,” Li said.