Student team captures national cybersecurity crown

SHELTON — A team of Shelton High School students has emerged victorious in the Girls Go CyberStart U. S. national high school cybersecurity competition held last month.

Team Hackstreet Humans — made up of 11th- grader Meleny Lopez, 10th- graders Ashley Jacob and Ria Dalvi, and ninthgrader Mary Pavliouk — ranked first in Connecticut and then battled more than 360 other high school teams to capture the national championship.

The national finals were held May 20 and 21, and participants had to demonstrate that they could master hands- on hacking, forensics and cyber defensive skills by solving real- world cybersecurity problems.

And since it was during the pandemic, they worked from their individual computers while staying at home.

“I was very impressed with how they worked together as a team even though they could not meet in person,” said SHS math teacher and team adviser Denise Norse.

“They did all of this while also juggling regular school work and AP tests,” she said. “In the end, they had completed about 44 percent of the challenges that were available and ended up coming in first in the state” before tackling the next level of challenges on the national competition.

“This is such an amazing accomplishment by our students, especially during distance learning,” said interim SHS

Principal Kathy Riddle. “I am impressed at their willingness to take on this challenge on their own and be so successful is such an incredible feat. We are so proud of these girls.”

Norse said two of the students had worked on the challenge last year, but, for the other two students, it was their first time working on a project like what they faced.

“I’m very excited for how the team will do next year when we can hopefully work together and recruit more members,” said Norse. “Now that these girls have competed at this level, they know what to expect and how to help new students solve similar challenges.

“It’s been a great overall experience,” added Norse, “and I’m hopeful that it will encourage more girls to explore opportunities in the computer science field.”

Norse said the team consisted of 17 students, up from five last year. The team started working on the competition in January, said Norse, when the girls tried some sample challenges in the “Assess” round. There are 14 challenges, including Caesar ciphers, Python and using the “inspect” feature on websites to find hidden “flags.”

“The great thing about this program is that the girls don’t need to have a computer science background to be on the team,” said Norse. “They work together, to Google for suggestions and to get help on the first round. Once the girls start figuring out some of the challenges on their own, they really get into it.”