DSU students headed for national cybersecurity competition

Eight students from Dakota State University are going to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competitions next week after winning a regional competition in February.

DSU has a long history with the CCDC. In the 18 years the competition has been around, DSU teams have been finalists six times, including placing second in 2013 and third in 2018.

“This is a challenge for us to do better than previous teams,” Gaelin Shupe, a master’s student from Boulder, Colorado, said in a press release.

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Some former team members are now DSU faculty or alumni who serve as a resource for the current team. Faculty coaches can’t assist in competition, but can practice drills with team members. 

"(They help) us be prepared for the competition,” Jackson Heiberger, a DSU student from Beresford, said in a press release.

The national competition is set for April 21-23 in San Antonio, Texas. Each year, there's a theme or scenario leading the competition. From there, the students have up to two hours to learn the details before they get their hands onto keyboards and start defending the systems from attacks.

The team includes:

• Shane Donahue, Cyber Operations from San Diego, California
• Jackson Heiberger, Cyber Operations/Network Security & Administration double major, from Beresford, South Dakota
• Jake Hince, Computer Science M.S. degree student from Buffalo, Minnesota
• Austen King, Cyber Operations, from Volga, South Dakota
• Annabelle Klosterman, Cyber Operations from Brandon, South Dakota
• Cody Mayer, Cyber Operations major from Sheldon, Iowa
• Gaelin Shupe, Computer Science master’s student from Boulder, Colorado
• Tyler Thomas, a Cyber Operations major from Forest Lake, Minnesota

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