Five college students sit at a table working on their laptops as another student stands next to the table and smiles in a large room.

ECU teams finish in top 10 of statewide cybersecurity competition

Published Apr 28, 2026 by
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Two teams of East Carolina University students placed in the top 10 of the Minutemen Cyber Cup, a statewide capture-the-flag cybersecurity competition hosted by the North Carolina National Guard in Greensboro.

Students gather for a group picture, smiling and holding up their hands as they look at the camera.

Cybersecurity students celebrate their accomplishments at the Minutemen Cyber Cup.

The 0xDead Pirates team of Waleed Khan, Logan Klaproth, William Coble, Isiah Smith and Garrison Mullen placed second, while the Zero Day Pirates team of Bradley Nelson, Chloe Clarke, Jackson Barbour, Chanz Redick and Henry Hickman finished eighth.

Khan, captain for the 0xDead Pirates, said the team led for much of the competition before being overtaken in the last hour.

“I was a little disappointed at first,” Khan said of the second-place finish. “I’m not going to say I was super disappointed because it was our first time (at the competition), and it was a good experience for all of us. We kind of know where we need to build off now, so hopefully next time we come we’ll take first place and take a trophy home.”

The competition included 32 teams from universities and community colleges throughout the state.

“I thought it was really a good experience for cybersecurity students to get deeper into the field, especially with real-world, hands-on situations,” Khan said. “It was really good practice for what we would see in our future careers.”

And for Khan, he wants that future career to involve serving in cyber defense for the government.

“With all these groups we have attacking U.S. infrastructure and power grids and things like that, that’s what I want to play into, helping protect the whole national security of the United States,” he said.

Khan, a senior computer science major from Archdale who will pursue a master’s in information and cybersecurity technology at ECU in the fall, thanked his teammates and the support of David Carraway, teaching instructor in the Department of Technology Systems and faculty advisor for the teams.

Carraway said the competition is more than just how the teams finish.

“Beyond the rankings, what stood out most was the level of professionalism, teamwork and technical ability our students demonstrated throughout the competition,” he said. “These kinds of experiential learning opportunities are critical in preparing students for careers in cybersecurity, and our students represented ECU at a very high level.

This event also highlighted the strength of our growing partnerships with organizations like the North Carolina National Guard and reinforced ECU’s commitment to developing a highly skilled cybersecurity workforce in North Carolina.”

A student wearing a hat types on a laptop computer at a table as other students in the background work on their laptops.

Students work on their laptops during the Minutemen Cyber Cup.

Nelson, a junior information and cybersecurity technology major from Cary, served as captain of the Zero Day Pirates, a team consisting of mostly first-time capture-the-flag competitors.

“We didn’t really look at the scoreboard. We just focused on the challenges and went from there,” he said. “I was really happy we were eighth, but I was also like, ‘Dang, we could have finished higher.’ But it’s one of those things where it’s awesome that both teams got into the top 10, and it’s even cooler that one got second place.”

He said team members learned a lot from the challenges, which included hacking into a language model to produce a specific phrase and finding vulnerabilities in a system to capture a hidden “flag.”

“It was a lot of fun,” Nelson said. “It seems like it wouldn’t be because it’s a long eight-hour day, but with the variety there, it was pretty fun. It was a lot more relaxed and chill than I thought it would be. I thought it would be everyone being super serious, but everyone was nice and chill.”

Nelson, who transferred to ECU after obtaining an associate’s degree from Wake Tech Community College, said he wants to test computer systems for cybersecurity vulnerabilities when he graduates. He thinks the competition provided valuable experience in that regard.

“It really brought to light just how many different things that I can do, and it exposed me to problems that I didn’t even know were a thing,” he said. “It’s going to help me know about those vulnerabilities and help me find different vulnerabilities to then protect my company’s server. Overall, it’s something that I can put on my resume saying, ‘Hey, I did this’ — especially since it was a statewide competition.”

ECU hosted its own cybersecurity competition in January at the Main Campus Student Center, an event with a full field of 87 participants from 11 universities and community colleges.