Palo Alto Networks' Cyber Competition for High School Students

Student support can come in a variety of forms. With a growing vacancy of cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. workforce, Rick Howard, chief security officer at Palo Alto Networks, recognized the need to nurture talent and passion for cybersecurity and digital forensics.

So, Palo Alto Networks, along with UAB’s Capture the Flag Student Organization in the Department of Criminal Justice, sponsor the annual Blazer42 Capture the Flag Scholarship Competition for qualified high school computer science teams. This year, 10 teams of four 10th-12th grade students participated in a simulated hacking event based on the board game Risk . Individuals in the top three teams were awarded scholarships to attend UAB as freshmen students. The first-place winner of this year’s competition was a team of four students from Tuscaloosa Academy.