Two teams from the Cyber Engineering and Computer Science programs in the College of Science and Engineering at Houston Baptist University competed in a national online “Capture the Flag” contest on the weekend of April 22– 24, put on by the National Cyber League (NCL).
The NCL competition has students work to solve challenges such as identifying hackers from forensic data, penetration testing, auditing vulnerable websites, recovering from ransomware attacks, and more. This event is open to high schools and college students across the United States, allowing teams to compete against other schools and represent their schools to the best of their ability
The first HBU team included students Sean Horgan (junior, cyber engineering), Jacob Buckles (junior, cyber engineering), and Leonardo Yerena (sophomore, computer science). This team of students completed the competition ranked in the top 5 percent of the nation, out of over 3000 teams.
The second team included students Olachi Ajawara (junior, computer science), Ethan Schellingerhout (sophomore, cyber engineering), and Ariel Lee (sophomore, cyber engineering). This team of students completed the competition ranked in the top 11 percent of the nation.
“We are excited about the performance of these students. We love being able to support our students to participate in professional experiences and student competitions. It gives them an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and hone their skills while competing against the best and the brightest from other institutions,” said Dr. Katie Evans, HBU Dean of the College of Science and Engineering.
HBU students were trained, mentored, and encouraged by faculty members Dr. Steve Lyford, Dr. Melissa Carlton, Dr. Marian Zaki and HBU Director of Project-Based Labs Lester Leonares.