Sauk Prairie High School students compete in cyber defense competition

Students of Sauk Prairie High School recently competed in CyberPatriot, a National Youth Cyber Defense Competition that has them act as if they are IT professionals working to fix networking breaches and protect a company from technology threats. The students compete in a series of three competition rounds with different machines that grow in difficulty. They are scored on their ability to implement preventative measures as well as eliminate internal and external threats. CyberPatriot is a national youth cyber education program created to help direct students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines.  With the addition of a Computer Science Club at the high school in the Fall of 2020, students now have an opportunity to participate in several computer science activities including CyberPatriot, esports, American Computer Science League and Bebras Challenge throughout the school year.  After six grueling hours of competition for each round, six local high school students successfully completed the three rounds of the CyberPatriot competitions each in November, December and January. Students, led by team captain Junior Lucy Sistek, at Sauk Prairie High School spent six hours this past Saturday,  hacking computers and building cybersecurity skills alongside thousands of students across the nation. The Sauk Prairie High School Eagles charter team has one senior, Nicholas Grinstead, three juniors Lucia Sistek, Elijah Green, and Dalton Zirbel, and two freshmen Jack Rausch and Kaleb Hansen. Sauk Prairie High School Principal Chad Harnisch says “I’m very excited by the opportunities our students are exploring in the Computer Science Club. In the entire IT industry, specifically cyber security, careers are in high demand. Giving our students the chance to explore and build the skills necessary for success in that career sector is an important goal.” Additionally, enrollment in Computer Science Classes at SPHS have continued to grow year after year, says Harnisch CyberPatriot is designed for any student, regardless of prior cybersecurity knowledge. Each team has two challenges during each of their three rounds of a six-hour competition period. The Network Security Challenge involves finding and fixing security vulnerabilities in Windows and Linux virtual operating systems. Using a proprietary competition system, teams are scored on how secure they make the system. The Cisco Networking Challenge consists of an online quiz and a virtual networking exercise based on specific training materials. The Sauk Prairie High School team began practicing after school on Fridays with some students participating in person and some virtually. It was one of 14 high schools in Wisconsin participating in the Open Division. There are almost 3000 secondary schools competing in CyberPatriot XIII this school year. Although the Eagles will not advance to the next phase of the competition, Advisor Mary Walz, said team members demonstrated great growth in each round and achieved a 361% growth in their team score from Round 1 in November to Round 3 in January.  The competition is filled with competitors of all skill sets. “There were other schools that have been doing this for years. We’re still at the beginning stages of this, but it’s a big success to be competing this year” Walz said.  Later this spring the team is preparing to get a jump start on the competition for next year with hopes of participating in different exhibition rounds in the summer.  They also have a goal of recruiting more students to compete in next year’s CyberPatriot competition.  Sauk Prairie High School provides four computer science courses, among them a new trimester course in Cyber Security that Walz says is a great opportunity for any student to learn about cyber security.  At the national level, more than 500,000 cybersecurity job openings currently exist in the public and private sectors. Wisconsin accounts for just over 5,000 openings.