The Northern Kentucky University Cyber Defense Team has once again brought home a trophy from the Midwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. This year the Norse Cyber Defense Team won second place out of the 10 teams from 9 states that participated in this regional competition. The NKU team entered this year’s competition as the wild-card team. DePaul University placed just ahead of the Norse squad to come in first place, and Southeast Missouri State University finished third.
The NKU CCDC team consisted of NKU students Lee Epling (Captain), Ashley Huffman (Co-captain), Rasheed El-Saleh, Brandon Hinkel, Josh Howard, Jack Lannon, Paul Sparks and Tyler Thompson.
“This competition was probably the best we’ve performed as a team. We were better about completing the challenges and our systems stayed more stable than previous years,” said Epling.
“It seems like other schools stepped up their game as well, and that’s what made this competition more interesting,” Epling added.
Huffman credited this year’s strong showing to hard work and communication.
“Our team worked very hard at regionals this year,” Huffman said. “One of the things that makes us so strong is our cohesiveness; we work together to get tasks accomplished instead of everyone being a one-man army. I think our communication and teamwork is why we do so well.”
Each team in the competition competes by managing and protecting an assigned computer network infrastructure. It is each team’s responsibility to not only maintain and protect its assigned network but to deal with varied and numerous attacks throughout the competition. The CCDC is designed to not only test the knowledge of the students but also to deal with the stresses of working as a team and dealing with potential and real network attacks.
Each team must familiarize itself with the network in a short amount of time and begin deploying network and security updates and patches before “red team” commences its attack on your network. Not only must each team defend and repel each attack, but also it must continue to meet normal services and user demands as well as maintain critical Internet services.
The CCDC also gives students an opportunity to meet and interact with industry professionals.
“Our team has been preparing for CCDC since last September, having weekly meetings and training sessions on security and simulated competitions. This is a great achievement,” said Dr. Yi Hu, Associate Professor, Computer Science and NKU Cyber Security Team, Faculty Advisor.
In addition to NKU, teams vying for the 2015 Regional CCDC included DePaul University, Indiana Tech, North Iowa Area Community College, University of Louisville, Davenport University, Lake Superior, Southeast Missouri State University, Baldwin Wallace University, and the Milwaukee School of Engineering.
From NKU