Harford Community College Students Participate in Maryland Cyber Challenge

A team of four Harford Community College cybersecurity students recently participated in the Maryland Cyber Challenge & Competition (MDC3).  Normally held in-person in Baltimore City, MDC3 utilized an online virtual competition this year.

Students James Roy, John Dunn, Aidan Bennett, and Robert O'Brien comprised Harford Community College's Cyber Team (Kilryoiv) for this year’s event. Frank Mayer, M.S., CISSP, adjunct faculty member at the College, trained the students for the event and coordinated their participation. The Harford team, which placed fourth in this very competitive event, demonstrated extensive preparation and practice along with great teamwork.

“Our team was leading the scoreboard during much of the event, but one team member lost his Internet connection and had to drive on using just a smart phone connection with limited capability. Our team persevered through glitches and the real adversity of competing in a remote enabled and synchronous cyber event to drive home the win while completing dozens of challenges,” stated Mayer. He said team captain James Roy exhibited outstanding leadership and the team used both DISCORD as a collaboration Platform and TryHackMe as the challenge platform simultaneously for the event in an expert manner.

The Challenge is the signature event of the CyberMaryland Conference. Launched in 2010, it gathers today’s top up and coming cyber talent in a single event for a thrilling cybersecurity match-up.

The competition scenarios and platform were refereed by leading cyber practitioners, university professors, and guest hosts from across the cyber community. The competition tested cyber skills in 10 different categories, including Encoding/Encryption, File Analysis, Forensics/Hard Disks, Log Analysis, Malware Analysis/Reverse Engineering, Network Captures/Wireless, Open Source Intelligence, Passwords/Hashing, Scanning/Exploitation, and Virtual Machines.

The CyberMaryland Conference is an annual event presented by the Federal Business Council in conjunction with academia, government and private industry organizations. This year’s theme, "Building the Cyber Generation," encompasses the event’s intent to ensure the cyber-safety of today and educate the cybersecurity professionals of tomorrow. Additionally, the conference provides an opportunity for Maryland to demonstrate its natural leadership in cybersecurity.

 

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