The Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) hosted the inaugural California Cyber Innovation Challenge at Sacramento City College on Wednesday, where eight teams of high school students competed in a series of timed challenges.
The teams gathered in a mock "war room" where they were "scored based upon their ability to identify and correct vulnerabilities in operating system images" and used a Facebook platform to complete challenges related to forensics, Web application security, cryptography and binary exploitation, according to GO-Biz.
“Collaborations like the Cyber Innovation Challenge encourage businesses, academic institutions and governments to work together to expand access to technology career pathways for students,” said GO-Biz Deputy Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Louis Stewart. “GO-Biz plans to expand this challenge in future years and hopefully inspire students from every corner of California to become active participants in cybersecurity.”
The top three finishers were No. 1 North Hollywood High School, No. 2 Westview High School in San Diego, and No. 3 Casa Robles High School in Sacramento. The other participating schools were Elk Grove High School, Luther Burbank High School, Irvington High School in Fremont, Los Angeles Teacher Prep Academy, and Ramona High School in San Diego.
