Zicklin Undergraduates Score Back-to-Back Cyber Case Victories

For the second year in a row, a team of Zicklin School of Business undergraduates has won the Student Cybersecurity Case Competition, organized by the New York metropolitan chapter of ISACA, an international professional association focused on risk governance. The winners were announced at an ISACA spring membership event on May 23rd.

From left: Antonov, Gaznabbi, Escoto

The Codebreakers, as the winners called themselves, consisted of the Zicklin School’s Maria Antonov (BBA, ’27), Rosa Gomez Escoto (BBA, ’25), and Dylan Gaznabbi (BBA, ’24), all computer information systems (CIS) majors. They were joined by the Weissman School’s Alexander Dominguez Zhakav (BS, ’26) and two students from other institutions. Together they took home the top prize of $2,500. 

For the competition, the Codebreakers analyzed an ongoing case in which the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil lawsuit against SolarWinds, the maker of Orion, a network monitoring software used by tens of thousands of companies and public agencies (including the U.S. government) to manage their networks. According to the lawsuit, SolarWinds deliberately concealed its poor cybersecurity practices so that it could go through with an initial public offering (IPO) in 2018. In 2020, Orion suffered a massive supply chain cyberattack known as Sunburst that is believed to have been backed by Russia; the attack could have been prevented had SolarWinds not misled regulators and the public, the SEC claims. 

The winners were chosen by a panel of judges, comprised of cybersecurity professionals, who listened to the two top-ranked teams present and answer questions. Both teams discussed best practices in cybersecurity for publicly traded companies and the implications of both positive and negative rulings in the ongoing case.  

“The Codebreakers answered the judges’ questions better,” said Trevor Moores (Paul H. Chook Department of Information Systems and Statistics), course coordinator of the cybersecurity program at the Zicklin School of Business. Dr. Moores was also the team’s academic advisor, a role for which he received his second ISACA Outstanding Academic Advisor award this year; he previously won in 2020.  

Noah Susskind, senior security architect at McKinsey & Company, was the Codebreakers’ mentor. “My proudest moment was during the live debate, when, in front of judges who work in the security field, my whole team was improvising and contributing thoughtful answers as a cohesive whole,” he said, adding that the win is a testament to the quality of the Zicklin School, “which keeps placing teams in the finals of this cyber competition year after year.”  

Susskind concluded, “Employers would be lucky to have any of the participating students join their team.”  

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