By Janelle Lau

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MHS CyberPatriots prepare for defense, executing tasks of cybersecurity, science, technology, engineering and mathematics in the premiere national high school cyber defense competition.

“Defend the Cyber World. It’s about computer security, we’re trying to learn the skills it takes to be useful in the modern world,” said team member Junior Mick Marchan.

Currently, the team is preparing for the upcoming qualifying rounds which will be held from Nov. 15 to 17, which will determine whether the team proceeds to the second round. “When we practice we just look at different security flaws (that are) most prevalent in most machines today,” said team member Senior Justin Hara.

During the qualifying rounds, the team will be given problems they will solve and be graded on. “We’re pretty confident, but we know that we’re up against people who have more time than us so it’s a little bit daunting,” said Marchan.

For preparation, the team applies their skills during practice scrimmages and meetings. “They release practice images, which is basically like images of computers that are having security breached or compromised and then we have to repair them,” said Adviser Blaise Hanagami.

However, the team still faces challenges. “Well, on the most recent scrimmage we ran into problems with Minix operating system and that really was challenging and I feel we could have improved a lot better,” admitted Hara.

Regardless, the team is supported by advisers and teammates. “A lot of the people there have a lot of background knowledge and there’s a lot of veterans, they’re all willing to help and the instructors are willing to help too,” said Marchan. Hanagami added, “The team works really well, they all work together even if they have disagreements they don’t fight, they talk everything out, they’re always there to watch each other’s back, so overall I think it’s really good. It did take a few sessions for them to get to that point, but as an adviser it’s really rewarding to see them come this far.”

Preparing for the qualifying rounds, the team is practicing harder than ever and supporting each other along the way.