Saddleback College’s Cyber Defense team of team captain Chase Elsea, Aleksei Sushko, Jose Suarez, and Michael Emmings finished sixth at the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (WRCCDC) March 31- April 1 at Coastline Community College in Garden Grove.
The WRCCDC competition focuses on the operational aspect of managing and protecting an existing commercial network infrastructure, enabling students to demonstrate their knowledge in an operational environment. The competition, in which teams protected the network against hackers, also provided an opportunity for students and industry professionals from Raytheon, Cisco, Crowd Strike and more to interact and discuss security and operational challenges students will encounter working in network security.
Saddleback’s competition in the 10-team field included Stanford, USC, San Diego State, Cal Poly Pomona and others. Saddleback was the only four-member team in the WRCCDC; all other teams had eight members, making the finish under the direction of team coach Dr. Jeff Barnett especially noteworthy.
Photo (left to right): Aleksei Sushko, Chase Elsea, Dr. Barnett, Jose Suarez, and Michael Emmings.