Carey Anderson, CyberPatriots sponsor and business teacher, looks at the amount of participation of the CyberPatriots ‘Capture the Flag’ event. Anderson wanted to keep the door open for any newcomers who wanted to join the event.

CyberPatriots members are participating in a cybersecurity version of ‘Capture the Flag.’ This game is a way for the CyberPatriots members to practice their cybersecurity skills for next year. According to Jinhee Won, CyberPatriots leader and senior, in ‘Capture the Flag,’ students have to find vulnerabilities in a limited amount of time. Additionally, this event lasts for about three weeks to a month.

 Won said that the ‘Capture the Flag’ event started around March 14, and will end around April 4.

According to Carey Anderson, CyberPatriots sponsor and business teacher the point of this event is to help the freshman and sophomores to catch up to speed.

 “We realized that as freshmen, coming into CyberPatriot as a national competition with the air force running it, we need a lot of practice. We also realized that the freshmen and sophomores need more practice. So we are allowing them to have that practice during this summer to get up to speed. Essentially we are trying to help the freshmen students who jumped in to not have such a big gap,” Anderson said.

According to Won, this ‘Capture the Flag’ event is mainly for CyberPatriots members. However, other students that are interested, and are not part of CyberPatriots can join this event.

According to Anderson, this event is a fun way for students to practice their skills. Anderson said, “What’s fun about ‘Capture the Flag’ is that it is a race between the participants, and it is a little competitive, but in a fun way. I think that is what interests many students. You think of a hackathon and when you think of ‘Capture the Flag,’ it is kind of similar. You have ‘X’ amount of time to get and find vulnerabilities.”

Won said she thinks this event is a helpful and fun way for students to practice their skills.

“‘Capture the Flag’ is definitely really fun and enjoyable. Not only that, but it is also really helpful for practicing all our cybersecurity skills. So, I would definitely recommend anyone interested to join,” Won said. By Sriya Chakravarthula.