Deborah Prescott | Daily Press Cyber Club Advisor, Josh Blumensaadt, assists Loic Fletcher in starting a computer program during a meeting. The club members work on virtual computers within a computer system when practicing cybersecurity.

ESCANABA — Bailey Inman and Loic Fletcher are Escanaba middle school students, members of the DSISD Cyber Club and a cybersecurity team who placed second in the Michigan state round of the United States Air Force Association’s (AFA) Cyberpatriot XII competition.

“On Dec. 7, the Delta-Schoolcraft ISD middle school team placed second place in the state of Michigan and advanced to the semifinals,” said Delta-Schoolcraft Intermediate School District Information Technologies Instructor and club advisor Josh Blumensaadt. “We are still waiting to find out the results of the semifinals.”

If the team scores high enough they will advance in mid-March to the national finals in Baltimore, Md.

The competition tests teams of high school and middle school students in a series of online scenarios.

Cyberpatriot, a National Youth Cyber Education program created by the AFA, was created to inspire K-12 students to work toward a career in cybersecurity or other science, technical, engineering, or mechanical (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation’s future.

Blumensaadt is hopeful the team of Inman and Fletcher will get through to the next round, but he is aware of schools in California that focus on a cybersecurity curriculum.

On Mondays, between 2:30 and 4 p.m. the club meets with Blumensaadt in the DSISD building. They practice on virtual computers full of security vulnerabilities and investigate forensics questions.

“We practice once a week on Mondays,” he said. “We were pretty good in the state round. It said a lot.”

According to Blumensaadt there were no other middle school teams in the semifinals from the Upper Peninsula.

“The last round was harder than the round before,” said Inman.

Competitors look for security vulnerabilities — a disabled firewall, programs in need of updating, hacking tools in a program, non-work related items on the computer, and users with administrative rights they shouldn’t have. They fix what needs to be fixed so the computer is secure.

“Cybersecurity is compared to basketball. You’ve got an offense and a defense. The offensive people are trying to break into systems and the defense is trying to harden the system to make the computer more secure so the offense can’t get in,” said Blumensaadt. “The competition consists of three images: Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, and then a Linux distribution called ‘Ubuntu.’ There are two other portions to the competition, but the core of it are the three images.”

This past summer, Bay de Noc Community College and the DSISD ran a middle school Air Force Association Cybercamp. During the week-long camp, kids were taught the importance of cyber safety and how to protect their personal devices and information from outside threats. Students experienced hands-on learning of cybersecurity principles that are relevant and applicable to everyday life.

“They learned a little bit each day, and on the last day they had a mini-competition,” said Blumensaadt.

Blumensaadt entered two high school teams into last year’s AFA Cyberpatriot competition and wanted to do it again this year, but found there wasn’t enough interest from high school students.

“I think Saturday competitions are tough … so we just entered the middle school team,” Blumensaadt said.

During the competition, teams of two are allowed to use notes on what they practiced. The teams can work problems out together and ask each other questions. Each team member takes one image to work on and together the team tackles the third image.

“They’re learning information you would learn in a college course. Bailey and Loic are learning how to set up group policies, scripts, command lines … It’s really advanced stuff … and they pick it up pretty good,” Blumensaadt said.

Even though Fletcher said it was his mother’s idea for him to become involved in cybersecurity, he found he really enjoys it.

“I’m going into the Army,” said Inman. “It’ll be good for someone in our family to know technologies.”

Both say they will probably stay in cybersecurity.

“The club is fun. I really like it, it’s educational; it’s a great thing, you know?” said Fletcher. “If employers see that you’ve done this stuff, they’re probably more likely to get interested in you. So it can help a lot, and it has benefits now and then, in the future, too.”