The Baylor Cyber Security Team Advances to Regionals

Baylor University’s Collegiate Cyber Defense Team trains for real-world IT challenges and cyber security situations. The national Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition sees teams compete and flex skills that have the potential to land them employment opportunities with sponsors such as Walmart, Homeland Security and Splunk.

“Companies are extremely interested in the students on the team, because they’ve gone above and beyond classroom experience. These corporate sponsors want the opportunity to observe these students in the competition’s stressful environments. If they do well, they get offered all sorts of great opportunities. This skillset is in demand,” said Jeff Donahoo, professor of computer science and team coach.

Each event is set up as if the team has just taken over the IT network of a company where existing, vulnerable systems have to be secured and new business needs implemented while protecting against active hacking by professionals. Each team is scored on their ability to adapt and respond to the challenges thrown their way.

This is the third year with Donahoo coaching and the second year cyber security has been offered as a class taught by Donahoo in Baylor’s School of Engineering and Computer Science. The team practices five hours a week, with an additional two to four hours individually honing particular skills.

The University’s 2019 team consists of 10 members, with eight active participants, Ruining Yang (senior), Parakh Jaggi (junior), Jordan Hurt (junior), Maddie de la Torre (junior), Joshua Pane (junior), Caleb Dehaan (junior) and John Weldon (master's candidate), and two alternates, Stephanie Alvord (junior) and Matthew Darby (post-baccalaureate), who train with the team but do not participate in competition.

Last year’s team finished fourth in the nation, and only one competing member from that team returned this year; everyone else is new, including the captain. This year’s team is led by de la Torre, one of the only two competing women.

“I’m looking for someone who can keep the big picture in their head and then break that into smaller problems and assign the individual solutions to various team members,” said Donahoo. “Someone that people will look to and respect that leadership, and even harder is look to and respect that leadership while under fire. That is exactly the skill set that Maddie has.”

Despite never previously competing, de la Torre has been successful at leading the team in competition and credits much of the team’s accomplishment to camaraderie.

“Our team is very different because we are all close friends. We all kind of know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and how you act under pressure,” said de la Torre. “I don’t think anyone would have been shocked if we hadn’t come this far. Seeing everyone’s confidence when we left qualifiers, there was a lot of team collaboration and problem solving. Being a captain and watching that, just being a member of the team watching that was really fun.”

The team competed in the qualifying competition, their first defensive competition together, this past February against 21 other schools. The group was one of eight teams to advance to the regional competition.

“You can’t be successful just based on individual technical skill. The team has to be able to coalesce and come together as a group. One of the real strengths of this team is their ability to unite and work toward a common goal. It’s particularly hard under attack,” said Donahoo. “They have worked hard practicing together and they clearly all have a significant confidence in Maddie as a team captain.”

The team competed in the Southwest Regional Competition in Tulsa at the end of March, but did not advance to the national competition. However, the majority of the team has the chance to return next year to compete again.