Marquette Team Advances to National Semifinals of Cybersecurity Competition

On a weekend, six Marquette High students gather at a computer lab at the school and log into their machines. They launch a virtual network of Windows and Linux operating systems and, for the next four hours, try to find and correct as many cybersecurity vulnerabilities as they can in that network.

This is the Air & Space Force Association’s CyberPatriot competition. And, this year, Marquette was one of the top teams in the nation at fixing a host of hypothetical cybersecurity issues.

The Marquette team – run through the school’s MO-931 Air Force Junior ROTC (AFJROTC) program – finished first in the state and 12th out of more than 750 teams nationally in the Silver Tier during the state phase of the competition, advancing to nationals. They competed in the national semifinals and finished in the top 34 percent out of nearly 1,000 teams from around the nation from all classifications.

“It’s pretty rewarding,” said senior Landon Buscher. “Seeing us have this much success after all the work we’ve put in, it’s really nice to see.”

Marquette’s CyberPatriot competitors – Buscher, senior Keerthana Thallam, junior Siddharth Kesanapalli and freshmen Jonathan Li, Carter Russell and Keerthi Thota – are all part of the school’s Cybersecurity Club, which Buscher founded. Although only he and Russell are AFJROTC members, the club competed in CyberPatriot with the help of Marquette senior aerospace science instructor Major Terri Zuber and Steve Baker, a community member who has mentored Rockwood CyberPatriot teams in the past.

During the competition, teams analyze and fix system vulnerabilities, learning real-world cybersecurity skills under a time limit. That can take such forms as firewall misconfigurations, violations of password policy or malicious programs.

Each round presents new challenges, requiring problem-solving and technical expertise. There is also a networking component of the competition in which teams take a quiz and go through the process of connecting a virtual network of machines.

“I took a cybersecurity class here at Marquette, and that’s what got me more into this club, doing well in the class, understanding the concepts and really applying it outside of school, somewhere else where it seemed fun,” Thallam said. “That’s what got me to be involved in the club but also make it go farther.”

The Cybersecurity Club meets Tuesday and Thursday mornings before school. Even with Buscher and Thallam graduating in the spring, the club’s underclassmen are excited to build on the success of this year’s CyberPatriot competition.

Russell said he has engaged with incoming freshmen at curriculum night and fellow students at the school’s activities fair, and there is an active cybersecurity group chat from which he feels the club can draw more members.

“Once I came to Marquette, I did ROTC, joined cross country, joined this, and I found so many people. That was my biggest motivation is I wanted to meet a lot of people,” Russell said. “A lot of us have CompSci, technological minds alongside that as well. We’re all really grateful to be receiving the award. When we got to the national semifinals, that was just wild.”

The students are hoping to use this experience beyond high school as well.

“There aren’t very many opportunities like this for high school students. It’s something that has been really unique and helped challenge me,” Buscher said. “Going into college, I think this has given me a great foundation of knowledge for what computer science and cybersecurity really are. I’m confident that this will help set me apart and give me some prior experience that will help me in college.”