Cyber Warriors win first-ever Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition
October 23, 2023
On Saturday, Oct. 15, Indiana Tech’s collegiate cyber competition team, the Cyber Warriors, won its first-ever Great Lakes Regional of the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC) by outperforming second-place Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and third-place DePaul University.
The win gives the Cyber Warriors, who both finished as a top 20 team globally for offensive cyber security, and the nation’s 12th-best defensive cyber security team last year, a second straight berth in the CPTC Global Finals, which will be held at RIT in January 2024.
“This year I am incredibly proud of our team’s finish in just its third appearance in an offensive security event,” said coach Matt Hansen, an Indiana Tech alum who was a championship-winning Cyber Warrior himself during his time as a Tech student. “This is a major upset in the competition, as RIT is traditionally a top-three powerhouse team. We made a statement about Indiana Tech yesterday by knocking them down to 2nd on the podium.”
Over the years, the Cyber Warriors developed into a national powerhouse by performing well in competitions where defending a computer network from outside attacks is the objective. In penetration testing competitions, participating teams go on the offensive. They conduct real-world penetration testing engagements to find, exploit and suggest remediations for security vulnerabilities. These tests are similar to those performed by companies, professional services firms and internal security departments around the world preemptively hiring these professionals to break into their systems to know what vulnerabilities a real attacker might attempt to exploit.
Members of the Cyber Warriors’ offensive security team are John Allen Rudolph, Garrett Bates, Myles Nieman, Bryce Murphy, Zak King, Nia Iott, Samuel Regelbrugge and Jeremy MacRoberts.
With January’s CPTC Global Finals, the cyber competition season kicks off in earnest. The team will try to win its 10th straight and 17th overall Indiana Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in January, with hopes of earning regional and national berths after that.
In the photo, he Cyber Warriors offensive security team, from left to right: Coach Matt Hansen, John Allen Rudolph, Garrett Bates, Myles Nieman, Bryce Murphy, Samuel Regelbrugge and Nia Iott. Jeremy MacRoberts is not pictured.