The National Cyber League (NCL) is a collegiate Capture the Flag (CTF) competition held each semester. The season begins with the “Gymnasium” for hands-on practice, which then leads to the Individual and Team games, where all the competitors test their abilities against nationwide.
As captain of the NSU Cyberhawks CTF team and President of the NSU Cybersecurity Club, I helped guide our group through the training and the Spring 2026 team competition. Together, we secured a top 9% national finish (304th out of 3,600+ teams), achieving over 75% completion with 70% overall accuracy.
The competition tests practical skills across nine domains: Open Source Intelligence, Cryptography, Password Cracking, Log Analysis, Network Traffic Analysis, Forensics, Scanning & Reconnaissance, Web Application Exploitation, and Enumeration & Exploitation.
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