Students Show Off Cyber Skills in National Competition

Last week, two PGIA high school CyberPatriot teams competed in Round 1 of the annual defensive cybersecurity competition. CyberPatriot allows students hands-on practice in marketable, real-world cyber defense skills. They perform tasks that professionals use to secure computer and network systems. Over 5,000 teams are registered for this competition, including teams in every state and overseas. PGIA was the ONLY school in the Virgin Islands to compete in Round 1 and our Team A landed in the top 50% of teams!

"I choose to participate in CyberPatriot to further my understanding of the lack of security that the Internet has brought us,” says Alexis Harris, Co-Captain. “I appreciated trying to do my best and participate on the team even though I might lack in certain areas. My partner and I scored 55 points on our virtual computer and we really contributed to our group's success. That feels good!”

The competition window lasts 6 hours and there is no way to know or prepare in advance for everything. (Special kudos to Zia, who unlocked some important skills on the Ubuntu Linux operating system in the middle of the competition!)

High School CyberPatriot Team Members:
Grade 11: Amelie(Team Captain), Ella Popple, Divina
Grade 10: Ella Crew, Dallas
Grade 9: Maceo, Alexis, Micah, Zia, Lyle, Mariana (Zia and Alexis Team Co-Captains)

Thank you to Technical Mentor Dr. Marc Boumedine of UVI, who was present during the entire round to help solve any technical hurdles and make sure all the competition software functioned properly.

We are still recruiting Middle School students to compete in Round 2! Interested students can reach out to Mrs. Hoffart at rhoffart@students.vimsia.org or come to our practices after school on Tuesdays from 3:30 to 4:30.

CyberPatriots

on display

Over 5,000 teams are registered for this competition, including teams in every state and overseas.

Mimi, Lindsay and Amelie - Social Engineering Champions

Follow CARE Lab on Twitter.

Congratulations, Mimi, Lindsay, and Amelie!

They are the FIRST PLACE high school champions of the Temple University CARE Lab’s SocialEngineering PenTesting Competition.

What is the CARE Lab? “The Cybersecurity in Application, Research, and Education (CARE) Lab offers a social science approach to cybersecurity and seeks to foster a multidisciplinary dialog between academia, industry, and government. This intersectionality enables a creative, unique, and holistic means of understanding the phenomena of cyberattacks and cybersecurity.” Click here for more information about the competition and CARE lab.

The VIMSIA team was “hired” to conduct a social engineering penetration test on the CARE Lab and its (current) employees! Their pen test includes each of the three areas below. A strong pen test will demonstrate the effective connection between these three areas and the team submitted a formal report of their findings and make security recommendations.

Team Advisor, Rebecca Hoffart, says that“This competition was a lot of work. The team had to coordinate across multiple international time zones because the competition date happened when most of us were traveling. And, they had to submit a 40-page report on their competition experience, which was finalized and submitted mid-air during a plane flight!”

PGIA Students Named Scholar and Finalist in National Cyber Scholarship Competition

The National Cyber Scholarship Competition (NCSC) is a rigorous 48-hour online cybersecurity competition sponsored by The National Cyber Scholarship Foundation (NCSF). Qualifiers competed against over 5000 other high school students in challenges such as solving computer security problems and capturing and defending computer systems.

Qualifying for the competition is an excellent achievement within itself. In total, 50,000 students nationwide sought to qualify for the NCSC, with just 10% meeting the requirements!

Our Qualifiers and Finalists

Congratulations to all our students who qualified for the National Cyber Scholarship Competition and won their badges! We’re so proud of your achievements and for representing VIMSIA

In particular, we would love to celebrate the achievements of the following students:

Amelie Zucker, a 9th grader, has been named a Finalist in the National Cyber Scholarship Competition. In recognition of her achievement, Amelie earned an invitation to participate in the Cyber Foundations Academy – a multi-week online program based on the nationally recognized SANS Foundations training course and certification – valued at more than $3,000. A huge congratulations!

Mimi Boumedine, an 11th Grader, has been named a Scholar in the National Cyber Scholarship Competition. In recognition of her achievement, Mimi has earned a college scholarship as well as an invitation to participate in the Cyber Foundations Academy – a multi-week online program based on the nationally recognized SANS Foundations training course and certification – valued at more than $3,000. 

This is in addition to the 10 PGIA students who were previously named semi-finalists (Gabe, Audrianna, Vidhika, Sakari, Natalia, Destiny, James, Ian, Divina, and especially notably Lindsay, who received the Silver award recognition and was almost a finalist), and six Bronze award recipients Sy, Maia T., Ariana, Kai, Chase and Noah. Ms. Hoffart says, “ Most of our students were competing in this type of competition for the very first time - I can't wait for next year!”

We’re so excited to hear about our students’ experience at the Cyber Foundations Academy and where their cybersecurity skills take them next! If you are interested in competing in the competition next year, you can qualify by signing up and playing in CyberStart America – one of the qualification paths for the National Cyber Scholarship Competition. 

National Semifinalists for National Cyber Scholar Competition announced!

The national finals round of CyberStart America's National Cyber Scholar Competition began on Monday, April 5 at noon and continued through Wednesday, April 7 at noon. This is a competition for individual students attending U.S. high schools. Challenges cover a huge range of real-world cybersecurity and programming skills. More information about the competition can be found here: cyberstartartamerica.org

Students Eligible to compete in the finals!

Gr. 11:
Mimi
Sakari
Vidhika
Gabe
Audrianna

Gr. 10:
Lindsay
Destiny
James
Natalia

Gr. 9:
Amelie
Ian
Divina

VIMSIA Students Compete in Cybersecurity Competition

On Sunday, a socially-distanced, masked, and temperature-checked VIMSIA CyberPatriot team met in the library for their first round of the annual competition. Lindsay Barr, Mireille Boumedine, Ian Gutierrez, and Amelie Zucker competed actively for over 5 hours. The team members worked together, and they worked extremely hard. They fixed vulnerabilities in three different computer systems (Windows 10, Windows Server, and Ubuntu Linux), answered digital forensics questions, and completed a networking quiz.

The VIMSIA CyberPatriot team ended with a base score of 232, placing in the top 50% of their division according to unofficial results. Half of the VIMSIA team is competing for the first time this year, and this is the second time the school is participating in this event. The team benefited from free online training provided by Sandia National Laboratories.

CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air Force Association (AFA) that inspires K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. One of their main programs is the annual National Youth Cyber Defense Competition, which places high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired IT professionals tasked with managing a small company’s network. The top teams in the nation earn all-expenses-paid trips to Maryland for the National Finals Competition, where they can earn national recognition and scholarship money.

Team coach Rebecca Hoffart said, “I am extremely proud of our team's achievement today! I extend a special thanks to the parents of team members for allowing them to compete, providing transportation, and offering enthusiastic support.”

Team members:
Lindsay Barr (Grade 10)
Mireille Boumedine (Grade 11)
Ny’Kel Emanuel (Grade 12)
Divina Kamra (Grade 9)
Ian Gutierrez (Grade 9)
Amelie Zucker (Grade 9)

Get S.C.E.T. Training Concludes - PGIA Wins Again!

On Friday, July 17th four VIMSIA students: Krishiv Amarnani, Mireille Boumedine, Zack Edwards, and Amelie Zucker completed the Get S.C.E.T. (Sandia Cyber Education Training) held by Sandia National Laboratories, which provides cybersecurity for the U.S. nuclear energy program.

During the week, the students gained points for answering challenge questions requiring them to apply newly-learned skills in networking, scripting and programming, cryptography, and cybersecurity. The week ended in an intense, four-hour challenge competition on Friday.

Krishiv participated in this high school level program even though he is still in middle school. He did well, managing to overcome some technical difficulties with his computer. Despite this being the first time in any kind of similar training or competition, Zack finished at number 12. Amelie, a veteran of the VIMSIA CyberPatriot team, was also participating in her first competition of this type and placed at number 5 on the leaderboard. Mimi finished in the first place! Mimi and Amelie were the only two Virgin Islanders in the top 5.

Advisor Rebecca Hoffart said, “I am ridiculously proud of them. They did a great job representing our school and our territory, and I am sure Sandia now has these kids on their radar.”

Left to Right: Krishiv Amarnani, Mireille Boumedine, Zack Edwards, and Amelie Zucker

VIMSIA GIRLS GO CYBERSTART TEAM EARNS 1000 POINTS

The VIMSIA Girls Go CyberStart team competed Wednesday and Thursday in the national championships of the Girls Go CyberStart online cybersecurity competition.  The competition lasted a grueling 36 hours.  Yes, the team did take time to sleep!  Our team worked together, stayed in touch via text and Zoom, and learned so much through the process. A growth mind-set was definitely needed, and the team never gave up. 

As a first year team going to the national championships, we knew we would be up against difficult, unfamiliar challenges.  The team had to work hard for every point, applying deep thinking and creativity to solve the problems.  They earned 1000 points!  Results are unofficial until next week, but we will place closer to the middle of the pack than the top ten. Of course, just making it to any national level championship is an immense feat.  We are very proud of this team!

Next year we will be able to bring a more experienced group to this competition, and our goals will be high.

VIMSIA will also be fielding Middle and High School teams in a different online competition coming up next weekend - InteGirls.  This one involves solving online puzzles and will be challenging.  It is also an opportunity to learn a lot and build team relationships.  You can learn more about the InteGirls competition here:  www.integirls.org

Feel free to contact Mrs. Hoffart (rhoffart@vimsia.org) or Ms. Petrich (mpetrich@vimsia.org) for more information about InteGirls.

VIMSIA TEAM COMPETES IN NATIONAL CYBER-SECURITY COMPETITION

Four VIMSIA students have been hard at work to complete the challenges and requirements to compete in the Girls Go CyberStart national online cybersecurity competition. Out of 15,652 young women registered for the competition VIMSIA’s team is one of the 300 teams that qualified for the national championship level. Team members Lindsay Barr, Rosalie Faulkner, Mireille Boumedine and Vidhika Khemani along with their advisor Rebecca Hoffart began meeting in February and have been meeting via Zoom since VIMSIA’s campus closed on March 13th.

Girls Go CyberStart is a program of SANS Institute, a non-profit organization which provides premiere cybersecurity training. Teams of high school girls from all over the country compete in a completely online competition, solving challenges in various areas relevant to cybersecurity:  programming, web insecurities, cryptography, etc.

You can find out more about the competition here: https://girlsgocyberstart.org/

The national championship will be held online May 20-21. Advisor Rebecca Hoffart says, “Competition will be unbelievably tough.  It's a great chance for the team members to test their skills, think outside the box and try some creative techniques to solve the challenges that will be real brain breakers.  As a first-year team, we will learn as much as we can and do the best we can. I am ridiculously proud of them and ridiculously proud to be their advisor in this competition.”

VIMSIA is proud of this team of young women. Lindsay, Rosalie, Mireille, and Vidhika are competing against elite high schools with long-established, top-notch computer science programs.  They have put in hard work and creativity to get this far in the competition and that is a huge accomplishment.