Two UH West Oʻahu teams find success at Spring National Cyber League competition

Two UH West Oʻahu teams placed high in the first Spring Season of the National Cyber League (NCL). With 149 teams from across the nation, UHWO teams finish third and 11th overall in the nation. The 2017 NCL Spring Season includes select challenges and hands-on lab exercises that develop and test players in a wide-range of knowledge and skills. The Spring competition ran from April 28 through April 30.

UHWO 2017 HATS team

UHWO 2017 HATS team

Coached by UH West Oʻahu Associate Professor of Information Technology and Cyber Security Matthew Chapman, the student teams competed in challenges in categories that included: Cryptography, Open Source Intelligence, Log Analysis, Network Traffic Analysis, Exploitation of Networks, Wireless Access Exploitation, Network Scanning, Password Cracking, and Web Application Exploitation.

“Competing in a national level competition, while simultaneously managing end-of-semester work, papers, and finals, is a testament to both our students’ technical skills and professionalism,” Dr. Chapman said. “We had so many cybersecurity students eager to compete, that this Spring Season, we created a second team. The fact that both teams finished so high in national rankings showcases the exceptional talent Hawaiʻi has to offer in cybersecruity.”

UH West Oʻahuʻs Hawaiʻi Advance Technology (HATS) team that placed third consisted of co-captains Tim Gunderson and Bryan Tanaka, and members Marvin Arnold Buenafe, Gabriel Farinas, Catherine Sarte, Taylor Kina, Robert Kuakini, and Duong Le.

“We couldn’t have done this without a strong background in technical problem solving,” Gunderson said. “Every member of our team worked until their eyes hurt or worse.”

Tanaka added: “We worked together as a team really well, we tackled every challenge from multiple angles. There was never a time where someone worked alone, and we all had a go-to person to tackle every challenge.”

UHWO’s Pueo Team placed 11th nationally. Co-captains Ken Dedicatoria and Kim Matsumoto led the team including Steve Lorenz, Louis Giardina, Sharey Vendiola, Ana Taualupe, Evan Monma, Brayton Acoba, Melissa DeLeon, and Justin Cobbs.

 

Image courtesy of Dr. Matthew Chapman