With a flick of the wrist and a tap of the mouse, the information technology specialist builds firewalls to beat back Trojan horses, spyware, and logic bombs that threaten truth, justice, and the American way.
The Cyberpatriot program, inspired high school students toward careers in cyber security and other technology careers.
“I feel like the Information Technology (IT) Industry is very lacking of cyber security,” freshman Donovan Murphy said, “and I feel like it’s an art that needs to be perfected.”
The school currently has five teams: four led by science teacher Keven Harshbarger, and the other led by Commander Vincent Quidachay.
There are 3,300 teams nationwide, and 198 teams in the San Antonio area, the largest concentration of teams in the country. To prepare for the competition, students study research on www.uscyberpatriot.org. In competition, the patriots simulate attacks on computers and prevent network attacks from bots by setting up firewalls.
“You get an image, and it acts like a computer, and you’ve gotta fix all of the problems in it,” sophomore Ronan Kelly said. “There are multiple problems, such as accounts that are not made, some malware, and you have to make sure that (hackers) can’t get into the site.”
ROTC has eight members that practice and five that compete. Those cadets competed in rounds one and two, and are scheduled to compete in round three on Jan 29.
“If we do well enough we can move onto nationals,” Quidachay said.
In an age where technology is the key to success, the cyberpatriots are ready to take the next step in their careers – one zombie drone at a time.