February Cybersecurity Competitions

Our students participated in multiple national cybersecurity competitions in February. This includes the Department of Energy Command on February 22, where Bridget Gorman, Shane Tran, and Alexis Fenderson completed various tasks to simulate the daily work of an IT administrator.

On February 15, a team from Loyola University Chicago (pictured) competed in the Illinois Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC). The team consisted of Josh Honig (captain), Nika Primus, Lynette Lim, Chloe Kilroy, Justin Lizardi, Nancy Rojas, Arrianna Szymczak, and Daniel Gaevskiy. Although the team did not qualify for the regionals, they did well scoring "middle of the pack". On the same day, another team was competing in the NCAE Cyber Games - that team consisted of Shane Tran, Sloan Luckie, Bridget Gorman, Kelly McCabe, Josh Carrasco, and Alexis Fenderson. On an unrelated note, on the same day in Doyle, we had another group of students and alumni planning a D&D game. This is likely the busiest Saturday in Doyle for some years! Congrats to all students!

The CCDC competition puts the students in a blue team, actively defending their systems against a live red team. They also have to make sure the systems, such as web, ftp, dns, stay available and online. On top of that, there are various injects throughout the day that the team has to respond to.

The NCAE Cyber Games is geared towards first-time cybersecurity competitors. It is similar to CCDC in that the students are part of a blue team defending against a red team while solving various challenges. The students get a bit more hand-holding from the black team who can give them hints and nudges.