FMS Fields First Ever CyberPatriots Team
By Cadet Zachary D. Waser, Batallion S-5
Saturday afternoon, November 3rd, a group of four tech savvy cadets at Fishburne Military School gathered to become the school’s first participants in a CyberPatriot competition. The CyberPatriot program is organized by the Air Force Association, and aims to educate students on the security protocols and operating systems for modern computers.
Each CyberPatriot team is given a portable version of an operating system to work with during competition. The operating system has on it a file containing the backstory of the operating system, such as being a workstation for a company or a webserver, and instructions on what needs to be done to fit the company’s needs. The participants then have six hours to comb through the computer, finding every security flaw, error or oversight, as well as configure every setting that a theoretical company may need.
The Fishburne team was tasked with setting up a general workstation for a company named XYZ. The workstation was not to have any hacking tools, or any network scanning or control tools on it. Every user account needed to be password protected, and some of the accounts needed to be removed, as they were not on the list of current employees supplied in the backstory.
With hackers and programmers becoming more aware of the way people think and act, they are able to hide malware in the open, posing as something useful, or well hidden. One of the peices of software requiring removal by the team was called NC.exe, which without further inspection, could easily be passed off as vital to the system, when in reality can be extremely dangerous to the system, allowing others to access your personal files without you knowing.
The team was working hard the entire way, and was joined by the team’s coach, LTC. Hunt, for some of the time. At 8:30 that evening, at the end
of the round, the team had a total of 80 points, more than enough to advance to the next round. The team this round consisted of Cadets Box, Weaver, Waser, and Burns, however the entire team consists of Weaver, Box, Burns, Ratcliff, Lawrence, and Waser. LTC Hunt is the Coach, and Maj. Cornelius as the team’s advisor.
This is the fifth year the Air Force has hosted the program, but the first year that Fishburne has participated. The FMS team hopes to participate in future competitions, and build a larger team to further educate cadets on the dangers of an insecure computer, and how to properly keep a computer system up to date and running smoothly.
