On Sunday, March 16, 2025, younger members of Messiah University’s Cybersecurity Competition Team participated in the National Centers of Academic Excellence (NCAE) Cyber Games. This particular competition is designed for first-time competitors and is meant to introduce the typical competition environment, mirroring many aspects of the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) including the “inherit and defend” style competition where competitors harden vulnerable systems and maintain their secure status as the competition progresses. In addition to scoring points for infrastructure and keeping various services online, this competition also provided the team with capture-the-flag (CTF) style challenges, requiring the use of skills ranging from network scanning to binary exploitation.
Messiah had just one team of 4 members: Brielle, Gabe, Harley and Noah. This was the first experience any of these students had with a cybersecurity competition and they all walked away with valuable information about a variety of topics they are excited to learn more about. Competing against other institutions with larger teams, Messiah’s team performed well. They were able to complete two-thirds of the CTF challenges and managed to get and keep several services online during the competition.
Through competing in this event, the four Messiah students learned a lot about system infrastructure and networking, as well as being able to enhance their skills with Linux operating systems. The team was grateful for the opportunity to participate in the competition and between interacting with NCAE staff and each other they each grew substantially in their technical skills and their teamwork. The team is eager to continue learning and is excited to see what future competitions have in store for them.
Thanks to Harley for providing the summary.
