Congratulations to the three winners of our "Secure The Future Competition"! Over the last four months, the top 10 students from universities across the country participated in a cybersecurity competition designed to address the challenges faced with how to make decisions regarding the protection of operational assets. The top 10 students came to Palo Alto Networks HQ to present their final research projects. The three winners were from East Carolina University (NC), Highline College (WA), and Ball State University (IN).
Participants and winners from Secure The Future Competition
Students researched and developed a report, summary video, and presentation that included methodologies for deploying end-to-end attack detection, alert triage, threat hunting, investigation, orchestration, and automated response activities.
The top 10 candidates were invited to headquarters to present their report to a panel of judges, formally pitching their ideas for “how to secure the future” of their selected industry. From this group, the top three candidates were selected based on their research findings and presentations, earning cash prizes of $10k for 1st place, $5k for 2nd place, and $2.5k for 3rd place. Each also won Palo Alto Networks firewalls for their schools' physical lab environment. While at HQ, the 10 finalists also had the opportunity to interview for internships and/or full-time positions.
Huge shout out to the Cybersecurity Academy Team and University Relations for bringing this idea to life and to the representatives from the IT, SE, and InfoSec teams for judging the final presentations.
