The Carrollton High School CyberPatriot team competed in the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition Jan. 21 and the results are in — the Air Force JROTC team captured the first-place victory in the Silver Tier category — making the Trojans national champions.
After winning Georgia’s Silver Tier, the team qualified for National Competition with Venkata Koppireddy, Kenia Galves-Hernandez and Austin Ennis participating.
Coach Robby Blakemore said the team has come a long way since the start of the season and he is incredibly proud of the students’ hard work.
“Each student was new to this competition, but they worked hard and learned a lot throughout the season,” he said.
The first competition took place in the fall. Students were given six hours to find vulnerabilities in various virtual machines using Windows 10, Linux and Windows Server operating systems. Some tasks included ensuring users had strong passwords and setting up firewalls. But Blakemore said as the season progressed, the tasks became much harder.
“Our team has grown significantly since the start. Each challenge got increasingly harder, and we continued to rise to the challenge.”
Two teams represented CHS in the competition. The JROTC team advanced to nationals by winning first place in the Silver Tier for the Air Force JROTCs in Georgia. The team of Computer Science students finished in the top five of the Silver Tier, which earned a place at nationals.
The Computer Science students finished in the top 50 in the Silver Tier category in the national competition. Participants on that team are Joseph Ivey, Brantley Colquitt, Ben Cannon, Logan Moore and Kewin Wong.
Blakemore said both teams are looking forward to next year to build on the momentum from this year’s experience.
