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MassBay Students Place 2nd at National Cyber League Competition

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

WELLESLEY HILLS (January 5, 2016) – MassBay Community College is pleased to announce a student cyber security team has placed 2nd at the National Cyber League 2015 Competition. The five member student team from MassBay, called the MBAnnoynymous, was ranked 2nd out of 129 teams nationwide.

The student team participants include; Michael Reda of Dedham, Paul Buonopane of Medfield, Andrew Liberatore of Franklin, Julius Newton of Ashland, and Alvaro Aviles of Ashland.

“The demand for cyber security professionals is high across every industry,” said MassBay Interim President Yves Salomon-Fernandez. “Massbay Community College has developed deep expertise in this area and we are now a supplier of workforce talent in the field. We are also fortunate to have extraordinary faculty talent in cybersecurity. We are thrilled that our students have achieved this level of national recognition.”

The students have been working together since the beginning of the fall 2015 semester and have competed in the preseason, season and post season of the National Cyber League competition. The competition is done online on a cloud based environment, where students compete to solve real problems. The MassBay team was given problems to solve that replicate what they might face in the real world if their company was to fall victim of hackers. The team dissected the problems to find solutions, which included downloading files, decryption to view passwords and analyzing information on the attack.

"I am extremely proud of our students who participated in a team for the first time at this competition,” said MassBay Computer Science Professor Shamsi Moussavi. “Students spend time outside the classroom to study, practice, collaborate, help each other, and compete in this competition. They have set a high bar for next year’s team, as well as a guideline for future students to learn from.”

The NCL is a national competition, which students participate as individuals or on teams.

For more information on the National Cyber League; http://www.nationalcyberleague.org/index.shtml


MassBay Community College was recently ranked by the Brookings Institution as one of the top schools for value added and earned salaries in the workforce. Ranked #1 for 2-year colleges in Massachusetts, #2 in New England and ranked #16 nationally. The College’s facilities in Wellesley Hills, Framingham and Ashland house day, evening and weekend classes that meet the needs of degree-seeking students and career minded life-long learners. Online options provide convenience and allow faculty to facilitate the learning process. Since its founding in 1961, MassBay has been accredited by several governing bodies and strives to meet the needs of the diverse local communities it serves.