Montreat College’s cyber team claimed second place in the virtual 2024 Cyber Summit Capture the Flag competition hosted by Liberty University. Cedarville University earned the top spot, while Messiah University rounded out the top three. Montreat’s runner-up finish rewarded the college’s cyber club with a $2,000 prize.
The seven-hour, challenge-oriented competition event tasked teams to complete missions in a variety of categories, including reverse engineering and web exploitation reconnaissance. Each successful task awarded the team a flag, which is a string of characters that can uniquely identify that the problem was properly solved.
“What made this competition a little bit more complicated is we haven’t participated before, so this was completely new going into it,” said Caleb Speigle, the team’s captain and a senior cybersecurity major from Harrisonburg, VA. “We weren’t 100% sure what to expect, which affected how we could plan.”
Alongside Speigle were teammates Tymofii Matviiv, Jesse Kramer, Jacob Barna, and Dezmond Brown. Beyond their technical expertise, Speigle believed that the team’s camaraderie and approach to learning set them apart.
“Overall, I feel like the biggest skill that helped us was the ability to identify parts that we didn’t know and effectively find out the solution,” said Speigle. “With these competitions, we never know everything, so you need to be able to effectively isolate and research the problem. I think that played into our success a lot.
With three members competing for the first time, Speigle’s leadership was instrumental in guiding and encouraging his less-experienced teammates.
“I approach these competitions as learning first and a competition second,” explained Speigle. “I was confident in everyone’s ability. We had good team dynamics where there’s no negative aspect to saying, ‘I don’t understand this. Could you walk through this with me?’ All of that creates an environment where we’re working together and not just individually.”
Speigle also credited coaches Greg Sayadian and Daniel Mugambi for their role in preparing the team for the event.
“They can’t help us during the competition, but they know how to plan and how to effectively teach us what we need to know,” he said. “The people and the teachers at Montreat College really do care. If you show that you’re interested in learning, they’re going to help you get to where you need to be.”
Beyond the competitions, Speigle is already thinking ahead to his professional goals. This past summer, the senior interned with the Department of Defense, where he received a full-time offer. He plans to continue his education through their extensive training programs after he graduates in May.
“My dream job is something in offensive security,” he said. “I enjoy penetration testing, so something in that field would be ideal.”
Until then, Speigel is focused on preparing for the next competition and building on everything he’s learned through the challenges and rewards of cyber competitions.
“I regularly encourage cybersecurity students to join the cyber club just because the competition is so valuable,” he said. “It would be a loss to go to a school like Montreat College for cybersecurity and not participate in that. You will get out of it what you put into it before the competition. No matter how enthusiastic you are or how much you want to win, if you have not prepared adequately, you’re not going to succeed to the level you want.”