McHENRY — A group of Garrett College students recently competed in a virtual Capture the Flag competition hosted by the Mid-Atlantic Gigabit Innovation Collaboratory and sponsored by the Cybersecurity Youth Apprenticeship Initiative.
A team-based challenge, the online CTF consists of sets of puzzles that require using various hacking tools, coding skills, and general puzzle solving to find the answers, which are short strings of code called “flags” (www.magicinc.org).
Once located, the flags are then entered into a scoreboard, which keeps a tally for all teams. The team with the most points at the end of the timed competition wins. CTF-hosted events are based on content originally developed by the cybersecurity professionals at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.
Garrett College students Austin Calhoun of Oakland, Ethan Crowe of Lonaconing, Timothy King of Oakland and Jacob Park of Oakland battled it out against 23 teams, with an 11th-place finish.
Competitions like CTF provide students the opportunity to obtain relevant real-world experience and skills in the cybersecurity field. Participants in CTF competitions can get a feel for the cyber process in an environment designed to help competitors “learn” logical thinking skills and teamwork.
“This was our first time competing in the CTF event,” said Kenny Allman, GC’s assistant professor of cybersecurity. “The students had a great time and enjoyed one of many experiential learning opportunities available as a student at Garrett College.”
Gloss