Old Scona team tops in Canada at cyber defence competition

Spear-phishing scams, ghostware and two-faced malware. For a group of Edmonton high school students, these intimidating cyber threats present an exciting challenge.

The four-person team from Old Scona school finished first in Canada in a global cyber defence competition. The CyberPatriot contest, which drew more than 4,000 teams worldwide, sees teams act as newly-hired IT professionals who have to find vulnerabilities in a company’s network.

“These boys are an example of individuals who saw an opportunity and wanted to run with it,” said principal Dee Elder.

“It started off relatively simple and as the rounds went on, we realized more challenges were coming … we worked harder and harder to conquer the challenges,” said 17-year-old Jean Hagen.

The team, composed of Hagen and fellow Grade 12 students Shyam Panchal, 17, 18-year-old Abhi Shoor and Mehrshad Sahebsara, 17, worked to protect their company’s cyber network through 24 hours of competition over four rounds.

“It’s really important to be able to take the theoretical skills we learned at school and actually apply them in a business environment,” said Sahebsara.

The team honed their cyber skills in a computer class run by teacher Irfan Qureshi, who said digital and computer literacy provide students with a competitive advantage.

“There’s a huge push in North America, including the U.S., for computer science in general, from kindergarten onwards,” he said. “You’re seeing more competitions related to that.”

The CyberPatriot competition is part of an education program run through the U.S. Air Force Association and includes teams from Puerto Rico, Australia, Singapore and Hungary. Students compete on various weekends throughout the school year, with teams advancing through various stages. National finals are taking place April 3-5 in Baltimore.

“(Cyber security) should be more enforced as a program that’s taught in schools,” Shoor said. “People need to start learning safe networking strategies.” Panchal agreed. “We all agree it was definitely a really rewarding experience.”