Training in the Cyber Range Leads to Team’s Success
Image by Brooke Coupal
04/03/2025
By Brooke Coupal
Students from 10 regional colleges and universities huddled around computers, anticipating an onslaught of simulated cyberattacks.
The team from UMass Lowell, consisting of undergraduate and graduate computer science students, had spent countless hours preparing for this moment. After two grueling days defending against the relentless attacks, the UMass Lowell team won the Northeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NECCDC), defeating teams from the University of New Hampshire, Rochester Institute of Technology and Northeastern University.
“Our preparation made all the difference,” says senior Chisom Ukaegbu, who served as co-captain with Ph.D. student Matthew Harper ’23.
The NECCDC, which launched in 2008, is an annual contest designed to give college students firsthand experience defending a corporate network against cybercriminals. Held over March 14-16 at Roger Williams University, the competition tasked students with protecting a fictitious pharmaceutical company’s digital infrastructure as it got ready to merge with another organization.
UMass Lowell has competed in the NECCDC for the past five years under the guidance of Sashank Narain, an assistant professor in the Miner School of Computer & Information Sciences. In 2023, the university hosted the competition, and the following year, the UMass Lowell team came in third. The 2025 contest marked the first year that UMass Lowell placed first.
“UMass Lowell is the fastest-growing team in the region,” says Narain, who co-coached this year’s team alongside computer science Ph.D. student Chris Morales ’21. “I’m so proud of these students.”
Image by Courtesy
With the NECCDC victory, the UMass Lowell team is moving on to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. UMass Lowell will compete virtually April 25-27 against nine teams from around the country, including Brigham Young University and Indiana Tech.
The students felt prepared going into the NECCDC after practicing cyberdefense for months in the Cyber Range, which is the university’s center for cybersecurity education, research and workforce development. Computer science junior Andrew Yanofsky is one of many students who helped the competing team practice for the NECCDC by setting up simulated corporate networks that were under attack.
“Without the infrastructure that the Cyber Range offers (from computers to servers), making the simulations and getting the team prepared would be incredibly difficult,” Yanofsky says. “The Cyber Range and its infrastructure were really important for the team’s success.”
Computer science alum Andrew Bernal ’24, who competed at the 2023 and 2024 NECCDCs, came back this year to assist with the team’s practices. He credits his NECCDC experience with helping him land a co-op at the software company Red Hat, where he got promoted to a full-time associate software maintenance engineer at the end of his senior year.
“I don’t know of any other hobbyist group like this,” Bernal says. “Here, I can get feedback from very smart people on the stuff I make and learn from them. Everyone has something unique they can teach you.”
Image by Courtesy
The current students agree that through training for and competing in the NECCDC, they gain valuable cybersecurity skills that prospective employers seek. Computer science junior Rohan Paranjape says the experience helped him get a summer internship with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a global leader in technology integration and a Lowell Innovation Network Corridor (LINC) partner.
“I got the internship specifically because of the skills I gained from this NECCDC team,” he says.
The team is busy sharpening those skills as they get ready to take on nationals.
“Every week, we’re going to focus on one area of the competition and brainstorm the best possible solutions for it,” Narain says. “Nationals is a different ballgame.”
