MMA's CyberPatriot team heads to national championship

HARLINGEN, Texas - Jan. 29, 2015 - PRLog -- The Marine Military Academy “Devil Dogs” are heading to the CyberPatriot VII National Championship, taking place March 11-15 in National Harbor, Md. The Devil Dogs are one of only two CyberPatriot teams in the state to advance to the national competition.

The Devil Dogs are: freshmen Giancarlo and Giovanni Betti Hernández of Huixquilucan, Mexico; freshman Maxime Dowla of Castro Valley, Calf.; and junior George Zenner of Houston. These young men competed last year in the CyberPatriot VI National Championship.

The team advanced to the finals for placing second in the Marine Corps JROTC category in the All-Service Division Regional Rounds held Jan. 17. At the national competition, the Devil Dogs will battle against 12 other schools from across the country in the All-Service Division.

William Beckman, chief of networking and security at MMA, is the coach/sponsor for CyberPatriot.

CyberPatriot is a national cyber defense competition that is designed to give secondary students hands-on exposure to the field of computer or information technology security. In every event, teams are subjected to a series of challenges. The more vulnerabilities a team can spot and fix, the more points it will earn. CyberPatriot is not a “hacking” competition. It teaches only defensive means of fixing vulnerabilities and hardening computer systems.