IEEE Spectrum editor Joshua Romero let me know about the conclusion of a recent cyber competition.
Baker College of Flint, Michigan, defeated last year’s champion Texas A&M University in the 3rd annual National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) held April 18-20 at the Airport Hilton Hotel in San Antonio. The University of Louisville took third place honors.
According to the CCDC, its program is the first cyber defense competition allowing teams of full-time college students from across the country to apply their information assurance and information technology education in a competitive environment. While similar to other cyber defense competitions, CCDC competitions are unique because they focus on business operations and incorporate the operational aspect of managing and protecting an existing network infrastructure. The teams inherited an "operational" network from a fictional business complete with e-mail, Web sites, data files, and users.
Each team was required to correct problems on their network, perform typical business tasks, and defend their networks from a red team that generates live, hostile activity throughout the competition. The teams were then scored on their performance in those three areas.
The CCDC program has grown from five participating schools in 2005 to 56 schools in 2008 with six regional competitions taking place nationwide. Let's hope more participate next year.
