Zicklin Students Seize Silver in Cyber Case Competition

A team of Zicklin School undergraduate students took second place in the Student Cybersecurity Case Study Competition, organized by the New York metropolitan chapter of ISACA, an international professional association focused on risk governance.  

Clockwise from upper right: Iqra Malik, Carlos Moya-Moran, Rosa Gomez Escoto, Abrar Rahman. Center: Manveer Singh

The student team, known as the Watchdogs, are all computer information system (CIS) majors who are also members of the ISACA Cybersecurity Club, a Baruch student group that was named the 2022 “Outstanding ISACA Student Group” by the ISACA chapter.  

The competition took place over two months, during which the Watchdogs — Iqra Malik (BBA, ’23), Abrar Rahman (BBA, ’22), Manveer Singh (BBA, ’23), Carlos Moya-Moran (BBA, ’23), and Rosa Gomez Escoto (BBA, ’25) — analyzed case studies of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on POPVote, a real-life electronic voting system used at the University of Hong Kong. A DDoS attack happens when malicious actors attempt to overwhelm a targeted service or network with so much Internet traffic that it causes the service to shut down. Teams were asked to pinpoint and evaluate possible security risks and recommend actions to prepare POPVote for a high-profile voting event.  

“The Zicklin team made it to the finals because of the depth of analysis they presented on the case,” said Prof. Trevor Moores (Paul H. Chook Department of Information Systems and Statistics), who ran the competition for Baruch.  

“They analyzed the case very well,” agreed Moores’ colleague Mary Tedeschi, an adjunct assistant professor who advised the Zicklin team. “I’m very proud of the team. They worked hard and I am glad I was able to be a part of their success.”  

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