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HSDC South Downs students compete in Lockheed Martin’s first virtual international CyberQuest competition

March 24, 2021

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On Saturday 20 March, two teams of HSDC South Downs students joined over 300 others from the US and the UK to compete in Lockheed Martin’s first virtual international CyberQuest competition.

The Digital T Level and Year 2 BTEC Extended Diploma IT students joined the Zoom call and spoke to the cyber professionals at Lockheed as part of a virtual international experience to inspire students to further study cybersecurity and encourage collaborative working to solve problems.

Students worked together in their teams through a set of offence and defence cyber challenges in a ‘capture the flag’ format to complete the “quest.” These challenges allowed students to gain valuable skills in stenography, cryptography and examining packet traffic on a network. The challenges were developed by Lockheed Martin information technology professionals, who also assisted students during the event.

From the UK teams taking part, the two HSDC teams finished a respectable 4th (BTEC) and 10th (T Level). Ben White, in his second year of a BTEC Extended Diploma, said:

“CyberQuest was challenging and fun. It was great to work as a team to solve complex problems and, when we solved problems, it was very rewarding and exciting.”