Members of Utah Valley University's cybersecurity competition team
OREM, Utah- Students from Utah Valley University, UVU, took first place in an international cybersecurity competition. Imagine a scenario with stolen surface-to-air missiles and ships stranded offshore.
A team of eight students from UVU were faced with this scenario last week as they challenged more than 30 teams from the service academies, elite East Coast schools and teams from Australia, Chile and South Africa in the Atlantic Council’s Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge.
The “W0LV3RINES,” as they call themselves, from UVU won the international cybersecurity competition in only their second year of participating.
Andrew Jensen believes his UVU team also faced a significant disadvantage.
“All the other teams were composed of MA, PhD students,” Jensen said. “We were the only fully undergraduate competition team.”
In the first round, Jensen said they were given a packet of intelligence information to analyze. They then presented their response the following day.
As they progressed through the second and into the final round, the scenario became more difficult and the time to respond shorter. Their work was judged by cybersecurity professionals from government and private industry.
The team members are all part of Utah Valley’s National Security Studies program. Jensen hopes to go on to a career in national security after completing a second major in computer science.
The team members included Jensen, Mark Driggs, Alec Heitzmann, Hunter Karr, Ashton Earl, Bryton Jensen, Mizuki Hassel, and Edward Goebel.