Granada High CyberPatriots Take First Place In Competition

From Livermore School District: Students at Granada High School (GHS) took first place in the Cybersecurity Pathway and Student Challenge at the Cisco campus in San Jose. National Commissioner of CyberPatriot, Brigadier General Bernie Skoch, joined the event in which high school teams demonstrate their problem-solving abilities when faced with a possible cyber attack. Each team was tasked with system hardening of a virtual computer infrastructure and searching for flaws and malware that an intruder could exploit to access information or corrupt the system.

The GHS CyberPatriot Club had the largest attendance at the Cisco Cyber Cup with 18 members competing, split into four teams. Miguel Baez, the club’s coach and Computer Science teacher at GHS, said, “This was a great networking opportunity for the students. They were able to speak to professionals from Cisco, and got a good idea of how this can be a job for them in the future.”

Teams from around the Bay Area competed in a series of challenges over four hours. The winner of the competition was the GHS “Founder’s Team,” comprising the members who started the club last year. Another team from GHS comprising all girls was new to the club this year, and took fifth place in the competition. Other teams from Tri-Valley schools, including a team from Livermore High School, joined the competition.
Baez noted that there were many new members of the club in attendance who performed very well in the competition, setting the stage for what he hopes will be strong performances in the upcoming elimination round competitions. The GHS CyberPatriot Club is only in its second year, and is rapidly growing and competing on a high level. Last year, the Founder’s Team qualified for the Platinum Tier of the CyberPatriot Competition with the top 30% of participants. The National Finalists of the qualifying competitions will compete in Washington D.C. in March.

The CyberPatriot competition is part of the National Youth Cyber Education Program, created by the Air Force Association (AFA) to inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation's future. For more information on the program, visit here.

Photos courtesy of LVJUSD:

(Photo 1) The Cisco Cyber Cup Trophy

(Photo 2) GHS CyberPatriots Club with Coach Miguel Baez on right