Cybersecurity students from Burnaby were tops in Canada in a contest that bills itself as the world's largest cyber defense competition.
Students in the Palo Alto Cyber Security Academy at Cariboo Hill Secondary competed in the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition between October and January and beat out 41 other Canadian teams to take first overall in Canada in the gold tier division.
The Cariboo Hill team also finished 19th out of 807 teams overall.
The competition, which took place over several rounds between October and January, was created to inspire students to pursue careers in cybersecurity.
Competitors are put in the position of newly hired IT professionals and given a set of virtual operating systems.
They then have to find and fix cybersecurity vulnerabilities – all while maintaining critical services.
It's a chance for students to apply what they've learned at the Palo Alto academy, according to Darren Yung, who has taught the Cariboo Hill-based program for five years.
Yung said it was the students' first time competing in a cybersecurity contest, and they were surprised and proud of the result.
"They tried something new that they had very little experience in, and they made it all the way to the top of the gold tier within Canada," he said. "It's a pretty cool win to have, and it's an accolade they can put on their resumé."
Since the Palo Alto academy is a district program of choice, it includes students from across the district.
The CyberPatriot winners were Grade 12 students Daniel Costa (Cariboo Hill) and Rijul Chaddha (Burnaby Mountain), Grade 11 students SM Ahnaf Reza (Byrne Creek) and Hanna Huang (Cariboo Hill), and Grade 10 student Jaime Camargo Salinas (Burnaby South).
Top finishers in the platinum tier of the CyberPatriot competition get an all-expenses-paid trip to Baltimore, Md. for the finals.
Yung said that's something his students will be aspiring to next year.
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