Kick starting tomorrow, Cyberpatriot teams are off to a series of the online competition with a strict four hour time limit. To prepare, practice images are given to run through various faults within a desktop that can range from not using proper passwords or programs that cause crashes. With new members that are either in high school or middle school arriving to the challenge of the competition, experienced mentors help them along the way.
“I’m a strong advocate for beginners to join and learn the ropes through practice content,” freshman John Bellahcen said. “Preparing for competitions is surprisingly straightforward, the images have problems you need to fix and these problems usually align with issues on competition images.”
Starting off with programming on his own time, freshman Mathias Seidler soon transitioned over to the Cyberpatriot and joined after hearing programming was a part of the club. Attending the first meeting, Seidler was confused on what he exactly had to do. However, with the help of older experienced mentors, he soon gained more knowledge along the way. When competition arrives, a strategy of getting common problems out of the way before moving onto the time consuming ones comes into play.
“Cyberpatriot is a great way to teach people how to protect against attacks, not just for businesses, but for your own computer,” Seidler said. “There is a lot of club spirit with members frequently talking to each other, it is a really great community.”