A team of five Kilgore College Computer & Information Technology (CIT) students placed in the top 20% of an embedded cybersecurity programming contest – finishing ahead of many highly prestigious four-year universities.
The contest – sponsored by the MITRE Corporation, a national cybersecurity thinktank – drew competitors from colleges and universities from all over the world.
KC student Keith Camp led the Ranger team with his experience in embedded hardware. Additional members of the team included Weston Kay (project manager), Cayce Crawford, Luis Padilla-Bryan and Will Fridell.
Entering the competition was a semester-long project chosen by team members as part of their IT Project Management class this spring.
After completing the security coding challenge, the KC team earned enough points to earn 18th place in the contest.
Ninety-eight teams from all over the United States, along with a few international teams, entered the competition. Only 28 teams proceeded to the final phase of the competition.
Some of the other top schools that placed in the competition behind the Rangers were: U.S. Coast Guard Academy (19th); Virginia Tech University (20th); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (22nd); U.S. Air Force Academy (24th); University of Texas at Arlington (25th); UCLA (33rd); The Ohio State University (36th); Texas A&M University (38th); and Southern Methodist University (42nd).
As part of the contest, the KC team was tasked with writing cybersecurity code to ensure the safety and security of an insulin pump. Their programming efforts in the contest would hypothetically either save lives or put patients at risk.
“Most people who use an insulin pump to treat diabetes would never think twice about the security of their medical device. However, in today’s connected world, we need to secure even devices like insulin pumps,” said Danny Darden, CIT instructor at KC. “Programmers must ensure the safety of those devices, as well as the lives of the patients who depend on them. The nation’s elite programmers are responsible for this type of security and our students excelled in this contest by doing just that.”
The MITRE Corporation awarded $20,000 in prizes to the top four schools. The contest has a different cybersecurity challenge annually and had three phases this year: planning, coding and attacking.
“We teach our students how to manage significant IT projects, and these students showed how leadership, communication and collaboration can accomplish life-saving results,” said Dr. Ginger Dennis, Business and Technology department chair and CIT instructor at KC.
Darden said he’s proud of the students for “putting themselves out there to try something that seemed a world away.”
“It’s a testament to the students that will follow in their footsteps and try something they have never tried before when the contest comes around next year,” Darden said.
For more information on Computer and Information Technology classes at KC, visit www.kilgore.edu/BIT.
PHOTO OF KC CYBERSECURITY TEAM: From left to right – John Weston Kay, Cayce Crawford, Luis Padilla Bryan, Ronny Keith Camp and Will Fridell.