SOCORRO, N.M. – The Federal News Network published a feature article about the NSA’s annual Codebreaker Challenge this week to promote the 2019 event. The article included an interview with NMT student Adam Merrill, who was one of only 20 people to complete the challenge in 2018.

The Codebreaker Challenge is an individual challenge where passing each stage gives points towards a school. Last year, Jessica Rooney, Sean Salinas, and Owen Parkins were the main forces driving participation in the competition. Merrill was one of three NMT students to complete the challenge, along with Parkins and Luke Rindells.

During the fall 2018 semester, 59 NMT students completed the first challenge. NMT had five students complete the seventh challenge, which was the most in the nation. Merrill, Rindels and Parkins completed all eight challenges. Only New Mexico Tech and second-place Georgia Tech had three students complete the event.

The recent article by the Federal News Network explains the event and includes an interview with the NSA’s senior strategist Kathy Hutson. In addition to offering students a learning experience, the NSA also uses the event to recruit interns and new hires.

The writer talked to NMT student Adam Merrill. Here is an excerpt of the interview with Merrill.  

Adam Merrill, a computer science student at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, participated in the 2018 Codebreaker Challenge. He said the experience of solving the challenge gave him the confidence to make cybersecurity a main focus area of his major.

“I’ve done similar things like the Codebreaker Challenge before but not to that scale. I figured I’d give it a shot and see what’s it all about,” he said. “It was a very steep learning curve. I am a computer science major and I know how to research topics to learn and try them out.”

Merrill said he spent about 80 hours over three or four months, and he estimates one-third to one-half of that time was spent researching online to understand how things like blockchain or distributed ledger works.

The article does not includes dates for the 2019 edition of the Codebreaker Challenge. However, the agency has consistently held the event during November and December.

The Federal News Network article opens with this narrative:

The National Security Agency’s best and brightest cybersecurity experts are putting their skills to the test.

No, it’s not by stopping the Chinese or Russians from hacking government systems—though they are doing that too, we think.

Rather, it’s by developing a cyber challenge and daring more than 330 schools and 2,600 students to solve it.

Kathy Hutson, the senior strategist for industry and academic engagement at the NSA, said the Codebreaker Challenge has become one of the best ways to attract the next generation of talent to the federal government.

“We are doing the high touch and personal approach to educate and attract students. Through the Codebreaker Challenges, we are using a non-traditional approach, which also teaches good fundamental skills for NSA as well as the nation,” Hutson said on Ask the CIO. “In our new employee orientation class, we started to poll all of our new employees as far as how they became interested in NSA. Among the new employees at a recent orientation class, one woman identified that she came to NSA through the GenCyber camps, which NSA hosts, and what sealed the deal for her was participating in the Codebreaker Challenge.”

 

To read the entire article, click here.