Members of the Cybersecurity Club @ VCU placed third in the North Eastern Regional Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC) held at Pennsylvania State University Oct. 11-13, 2019.

This competition brings together top cybersecurity student teams to detect and effectively address complex security vulnerabilities. In a simulated environment, teams are required to optimize the security of a fictitious organization and mitigate progressively more challenging risks.

Team captain Erwin Karincic along with Nicholas Copi, Liam Fernando, Matt Mawyer, John Naylor and Yadunandan Pillai will now advance to the CPTC National Finals hosted at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Nov. 22-24.

There, VCU will compete against California State Polytechnic University, Penn State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, RIT Dubai, Stanford University, the University of Buffalo, the University of Central Florida, the University of Virginia and the U.S. Air Force Academy.

“VCU’s cybersecurity club is successful because we have a group of passionate and very hardworking students,” said Carol Fung, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science and faculty adviser to the club. “Erwin's excellent organization of the club is also very important. The club also received strong support from the computer science department and the college.”