Two teams of high school students from Twentynine Palms High School will be competing in the regional round of the National Youth Cyber Defense competition today and tomorrow. The competition puts the teams of students in the position of newly hired IT professionals tasked with managing the network of a small company. In the rounds of competition, teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems, and are tasked with finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities and hardening the system, all while maintaining critical services in a six-hour period. Led by Coach Michael Collins and Jason Collins, the Twentynine Palms High School CyberPatriot teams—who are in their first year of competing—excelled in the competition last month, and earned a spot in the Platinum and Silver tiers in the regional rounds this weekend. Top teams at this weekend’s competition will advance to the national competition in Washington, D.C.
