A team of SUNYIT students placed second in the regional qualifying round of the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, the largest competition of its kind in the U.S.

Students in the Network and Computer Security Club—team captain Michael Burke, Patrick Araya, Jacob Hartman, Matthew Lapinski, Anthony Miller-Rhodes, Elisha Myers, Peter Shipman, Robert Sleys, accompanied by SUNYIT staff member and team coach Nick Merante—faced off against teams from all over the Northeast March 8-10 at the competition in Orono, Maine. Outperforming much larger institutions such as Syracuse University, Northeastern and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the SUNYIT student team was second only to Rochester Institute of Technology.

"What's remarkable is that it’s the first year our students have competed, and they advanced to the regional event and finished second—an outstanding effort," said John Marsh, associate professor of computer science. "Their performance was made possible by help and support from Assured Information Security, Inc., and Northrop Grumman Corporation of Rome, N.Y., and Yahoo. We’re looking forward to building on this effort next year."

The annual competition, according to its organizers, "focuses on the operational aspect of managing and protecting an existing 'commercial' network infrastructure . . . students get a chance to test their knowledge in an operational environment . . . and is a unique opportunity for students and industry professionals to interact and discuss many of the security and operational challenges the students will soon face as they enter the job market."

SUNYIT offers a bachelor of science in network and computer security (NCS) and recently announced that a master's degree program in NCS will be offered starting in the fall semester.

Photo courtesy University of Maine. With the SUNYIT team (at right) is George Markowsky, associate director of the UMaine School of Computing and Information Science.