North Carolina’s inaugural Cyber Bowl came to a close on Oct. 31. The month-long cybersecurity awareness event had NC State vying for the championship over UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.
More than 5,300 students, faculty and staff across all three schools participated by completing a five-question quiz about cybersecurity. NC State had the most participants — 2,188 individuals equaling 6.02% of the university’s population. Ultimately, UNC-Chapel Hill brought home the title with a total percentage of 6.45%. Duke finished the competition with 4.1% of its population participating.
The Cyber Bowl was spearheaded by NC State’s Cybersecurity Awareness Team (CSAT) along with counterparts from UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke to celebrate National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM). Each participant who completed the quiz earned a point for their university while learning about topics like phishing and password security.
“Cybersecurity is a team effort and is critical to protect our information. Everyone needs to be aware of common security risks and how to avoid them,” said Mardecia Bell, NC State’s chief information security officer. “We thought it would be fun to leverage the school rivalries and promote cybersecurity awareness at the same time.”
Throughout October, CSAT members connected with students at four tabling events on campus. In addition to encouraging them to take the Cyber Bowl, students had an opportunity to ask cybersecurity and IT-related questions and pick up some swag.
Cyber Bowl participants were also entered to win prizes. The following winners were chosen at random:
- Amy Fee Bruzzichesi — Lenovo Wired VoIP Headset
- Thor Duryea — Lenovo Performance FHD Webcam
- Sherry Rafatpanah — Lenovo Professional Bluetooth Mouse
Sponsors of this year’s NCSAM events include BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, Lenovo, the NC State ePartners Program, NC State Department of Computer Science, NC State Engineering Foundation and NC State Office of Information Technology.
The second annual Cyber Bowl is already being planned for October 2025 with the possibility of more schools joining in the battle.
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