{"id":610,"date":"2026-01-22T20:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T20:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/?p=610"},"modified":"2026-01-22T15:40:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T15:40:15","slug":"messiah-cybersecurity-team-qualifies-for-2026-maccdc-regional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/messiah-cybersecurity-team-qualifies-for-2026-maccdc-regional\/","title":{"rendered":"Messiah Cybersecurity Team Qualifies for 2026 MACCDC Regional"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday, January 17, 2026, the Messiah University Cybersecurity Competition Team participated in the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC) regional qualifier.\u00a0 This virtual cyber defense competition determines which teams advance to the in-person regional event held in the Baltimore area.<\/p>\n<p>MACCDC is an \u201cinherit-and-defend\u201d style competition in which teams are given a simulated business production environment, complete with the systems and services found in a real organization.\u00a0 Teams must quickly assess and harden these systems before attackers (the &#8220;red team&#8221;) attempt to compromise them.\u00a0 In addition to technical defense, participants operate as a legitimate business\u2014responding to operational requests, maintaining service availability, and writing professional business memos to and from a simulated executive leadership team.<\/p>\n<p>This year, Messiah University\u2019s team was comprised of Chris, Brandon, Ryan, Austin, Michael, Eli, Isaac, and Harley.\u00a0 The team is coached by Dr. David Bibighaus.<\/p>\n<p>We are proud to share that Messiah University placed in the top eight of the regional qualifiers while competing against 16 teams, including many large Division I institutions.\u00a0 This placement advances our team to the in-person regional competition on March 27\u201328.<\/p>\n<p>This accomplishment reflects the team\u2019s hard work and dedication, as well as the continued growth of Messiah University\u2019s Cybersecurity Program. The team looks forward to building on this experience as they prepare for future competitions.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-615 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/01\/IMG_5320-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"394\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/01\/IMG_5320-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/01\/IMG_5320-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/01\/IMG_5320-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/01\/IMG_5320-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2026\/01\/IMG_5320-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 525px) 100vw, 525px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Saturday, January 17, 2026, the Messiah University Cybersecurity Competition Team participated in the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC) regional qualifier.\u00a0 This virtual cyber defense competition determines which teams advance to the in-person regional event held in the Baltimore area. MACCDC is an \u201cinherit-and-defend\u201d style competition in which teams are given a simulated business &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/messiah-cybersecurity-team-qualifies-for-2026-maccdc-regional\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Messiah Cybersecurity Team Qualifies for 2026 MACCDC Regional&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/csblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}