Computer Science Major wins national cyber hacking competition
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Computer Science major Victor Torres hacked his way to the top of the National Cyber League.
Computer Science Lecturer, David Zeichick, “It shows that Chico State students are competitive and can go up against any other student nationwide.”
In early November Torres captured the NCL (National Cyber League) individual title, defeating more than 3,000 competitors from around the country. However, Torres didn’t stop there. Two weeks later he combined with other Chico State students to win the NCL team championship as well, beating out more than 300 other groups.
Victor Torres, “You’re given a bunch of challenges you need to complete and you can’t ask for help, you have to do it by yourself, or do it with your team. They involve password cracking, open source intelligence, web application vulnerabilities, exploiting binaries, all those things. The goal is, we have to find some sort of hidden flag in there.”
The competitions last from Friday morning until Sunday evening and can be pretty grueling. For example, during the individual competition Torres found himself working on the final challenge for roughly twelve hours straight.
Torres, “I was like hammering at it, doing the same thing, because I thought there was only one way to do it. At the very end, just a bunch of things clicked and then I got it. The moment I got that, I jumped to first and it was the last ten minutes, so it was like, I won.”
And while winning the competition was obviously pretty sweet, the real prize will come after he graduates in May. After all, with his skillset, Torres appears to have a long and successful career in front of him.
Zeichick, “Computer security is a field that needs a lot more people, and qualified people. So when we have (someone) like Victor that was able to show his skills off, that is something that is going to be very lucrative, and also very appealing to companies out there.”
Torres, “I can do this stuff, and I enjoy doing it, and I don’t get burned out on it at all. Something like that, you should do.”
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