CyberWVU qualifies for regional competition

A team of students fromWest Virginia Universityhave qualified for the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, scheduled for March 31-April 2.

By Olivia Miller
Communications Specialist

Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

CyberWVU, a cyber-security and forensics club housed in the Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources, qualified for the “inherit and defend competition” during a remote qualifying round out of the West Virginia Cyber Crime Cooperative Laboratory in February. This is the team’s fifth year competing in the competition.

“Our job during the competition will be to make sure that a business’ infrastructure systems are functioning properly, while also protecting them from attacks,” said Brian Sizemore, a senior computer science major from Clay, and president of the club.

The attacks will come from a team of professional hackers and penetration testers who volunteer their time to the competition.

According to Sizemore, the biggest challenge comes when team members are separated from one another.

“Every member of our team has domain-specific knowledge in different areas that allows us to work well together as a team,” said Sizemore. “In this competition, we may actually be separated from each other, which means we have to be prepared to work outside our area of expertise.”

More than 300 students competed on teams from many colleges and universities to qualify for the regional competition; CyberWVU was one of only eight teams selected.

Sizemore will be joined by computer and electrical engineering dual majors Chance Grillot (Boone)and Mason Greathouse (Parkersburg), computer engineering and computer science dual major Spencer Wagner (Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania), electrical engineering majors Christo Robison (Crownsville, Maryland) and Jacob Tyo (WVU Honors College, Strange Creek). Management informations systems major Cameron Morris and freshman engineering student Brian Sweeney round out the team.

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