RedTeam Achieves Breakthrough in NCL Cybersecurity Competition

The 23 members of the Michigan Tech RedTeam achieved a historic breakthrough in the Spring 2021 National Cyber League (NCL) competition.

The primary team finished the capture-the-flag (CTF) team competition 3rd Place in the overall ranking (tied for 1st Place in score). More than 900 teams from across the country participated in the CTF.

Students on the primary team are: Trevor Hornsby, Dakoda Patterson, Stu Kernstock, Matthew Chau, Ryan Klemm, Shane Hoppe, and Joshua Stiebel.

Further, of the 4,180 individual players competing in this spring’s NCL, four RedTeam players ranked in the Top 100: Trevor Hornsby (50th Place), Dakoda Patterson (59th), Stu Kernstock (75th), and Matthew Chau (100th).

“Amazing achievements!” said Dr. Bo Chen, Computer Science. “We are proud of you guys!” Chen, along with Dr. Yu Cai, Applied Computing, are advisors to the student organization.

The biannual NCL cybersecurity competition, for college and high school students, consists of a series of individual and team challenges, which present opportunities for students to prepare and test themselves against practical cybersecurity knowledge and skills, such as identifying hackers from forensic data, pentesting and auditing vulnerable websites, and recovering from ransomware attacks.

RedTeam is a registered Michigan Tech student organization. The team works to promote a security-driven mindset among students, and provide a community and resource for those wishing to learn more about information security.

Interested in cybersecurity? RedTeam meets every Thursday, 6:00-7:00 p.m., in Discord. Students with little or no background in cybersecurity are welcome. Contact the Red Team (redteam@mtu.edu) for more information.