FITSEC Gets Congrats from Rubio

Florida Tech’s competitive cybersecurity team, FITSEC, was honored to welcome the regional director for U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. Thomas Self came to campus in late January bearing a letter from Rubio congratulating the team on winning the National Cyber League Team Championships.

“As Vice Chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I know the vital role cybersecurity plays in defense of our nation and its infrastructure,” Rubio wrote. “Your victory in this competition is a testament to your years of hard work and signifies not only your commitment to learning, but to using your talents to combat the threats that could affect the lives of Americans.”

Last year, computer science students Blake Janes ‘22, Carl Mann ‘22, Stephanie Wood ‘21, Dave Breeden ‘21, Tiffanie Petersen ‘22, Isaiah Thomas ‘22 and Logan Suarez ’22 won the National Cyber League Team (NCL) Championships, beating over 3,900 teams to secure Florida Tech’s status as the top team in the nation.

The NCL holds its bi-annual tournament that pits the top 650 colleges and high schools against each other. Teams race to solve challenges representative of real-life cyber threats mapped to National Security Agency-aligned courses and the cybersecurity framework of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education.