A group of Centre Wellington District High School (CWDHS) students have been awarded for their innovative thinking at a national cybersecurity competition.
CWDHS had two teams competing at the CyberTitan IV competition, which was held virtually: Falcontech Plagueware, a senior team made up of a diverse group of students, and the Terabytches 3.0 an all-female team.
CyberTitan IV is a culmination of six months of cybersecurity training and competition involving 133 teams from across Canada.
Both teams placed in the top 10 of the national finals, with the senior team coming fourth and the women’s team coming 10th.
Falcontech Plagueware was also given the Cyber Defender Award, which coach Timothy King explained is a judge’s choice award for the team that displays the most innovative strategies and greatest teamwork.
“The team managed to hack into one of the servers on the network and secure it...that was something none of the other teams managed to do,” King said.
What he said he thinks really captured the judges’ attention was how even after seven hours of competition, the team didn’t give up and attempted a very aggressive move.
“They tried to nuke the server from space, they basically said ‘we’re going to completely wipe the system in order to get rid of the malware,’” King explained.
“It was such an aggressive and audacious move the judges were like ‘oh well done, that shows some real character.’ It’s the end of the day and you’re all exhausted and instead of giving up you go for this long ball hail Mary attempt to try and save the whole thing.”
King said CWDHS’s teams are made up of a mix of neurodiverse applied and academic students. Having an all-female team is also a rarity in competitions like this.
He said this diverse mix on both teams is a strength as they come up with unique approaches to use in the cybersecurity competition.
Meanwhile, the top three teams were from York region specialist academic schools.
“They do what they do but for us to be competitive against them I think is fantastic,” King said.
“It shows you the quality of students we have in the area and our ability to compete at that level. I’m just so proud of them.”
King said the cybersecurity field is a growing field with a lot of job opportunities and is increasingly becoming more important.
He said a police officer who spoke at a conference told attendees cyber attacks will soon generate more income for criminals than the entire illicit drug trade.
