 The competition has grown from five participating schools in 2005 to
56 schools in 2008, with six regional competitions taking place
nationwide. The 2008 national competition features the 2007
defending champion, Texas A&M University, along with Baker College
of Flint, Mich., the Community College of Baltimore County, Mount
San Antonio College of Los Angeles County, Rochester Institute of
Technology and the University of Louisville. The participants
advanced to the national competition after winning regional
competitions against opposing teams in the Southwest, Midwest,
Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and West Coast regions.
The program is sponsored in part through donations from leading
businesses in the communications and information technology
industries.
"AT&T has always put an emphasis on technology and education,"
said John T. Montford, AT&T Western Region president, "We are proud
to support the NCCDC's competition that encourages students to find
new and innovative ideas that benefit companies like AT&T, and
partner with UTSA to work toward an ever-advancing field of network
security."
The competitive program is the first cyber defense competition
allowing teams of full-time collegiate 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, these competitions are unique
because they focus on business operations and incorporate the
operational aspect of managing and protecting an existing network
infrastructure. The teams will inherit an "operational" network from
a fictional business, complete with e-mail, Web pages, data files
and users.
"We had many visiting faculty members benefit from last year's
national competition as they experienced firsthand what it would be
like to have to protect a company's infrastructure in a hostile
Internet environment," said Greg White, director of the University
of Texas at San Antonio's Center for Infrastructure Assurance and
Security. "Some of the faculty even changed their instructional
programs as a result of lessons learned from the competition."
Each team will be 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 will be scored on their performance in those
three areas, and the team with the highest score at the end of the
competition will be the National Collegiate Cyber Defense champion.
"Acronis is proud to once again be sponsoring such an important
event," said Stephen Lawton, Acronis' senior director of strategic
marketing. "Tomorrow's IT leaders need to understand not only
networking's best practices, but also be able to take emerging
technologies and create new best practices. These are among the best
and the brightest up-and-coming network administrators in the
country. While Acronis is expert at restoring failed systems, these
are the administrators who must be expert at disaster prevention."
Donated hardware and software from leaders in the IT industry is
used during the competition to provide students with the opportunity
to work with technologies they would never see in a typical
classroom environment.
"Up-and-coming network administrators and IT leaders are
expanding their level of expertise and awareness at the National
Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. Core Security Technologies is
proud to sponsor an event that helps prepare the students for what
they will experience beyond the typical classroom setting, helping
them reach their full potential," said Mike Yafee of Core Security.
[to top of second column] |
The National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition is being sponsored
in part through donations and volunteer support from the
AT&T Foundation,
Department of Homeland Security,
Cisco Systems,
Acronis,
Northrop Grumman,
Accenture, the
Information Systems Security
Association, Core
Security, ThinkGeek,
CoDe Magazine and
Pepsi.
For more information, visit
http://www.nationalccdc.org/
or contact the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security at
210-458-2118 or
info@nationalccdc.org.
Schedule
Competition: Friday, 1-7:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m.-6:30 p.m.;
Sunday, 9-11:30 a.m.
Formal awards luncheon: Sunday, 12:30-2:30 p.m.
___
History and fact sheet: UTSA's Center for Infrastructure
Assurance and Security
Established in 2001, the University of Texas at San Antonio's
Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security leverages San
Antonio's infrastructure assurance strengths and bolsters research
and educational initiatives in the field. The multidisciplinary
research center is a partnership between academia, the information
technology security industry and the local Air Intelligence Agency.
The Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security addresses the
technical and policy issues of information assurance and security
and provides educational training.
In 2002-2003, the center led the highly successful Dark Screen
cyber terrorism exercise for San Antonio, bringing national
attention as the first city in the nation to conduct a cyber
security exercise.
Over the last three years, the center has been awarded more than
$8 million through defense appropriations to support community cyber
security defend-and-attack exercises and infrastructure assurance
and security research.
Personnel from the center have conducted exercises for the
various critical infrastructure information sharing and analysis
centers as well as for states and communities around the nation.
In February 2008, personnel from the center participated in the
Department of Homeland Security's CyberStorm II National Cyber
Security Exercise in Washington, D.C.
The University of Texas at San Antonio was the first Texas
university with the national "Center for Academic Excellence in
Information Assurance Education" designation from the Department of
Homeland Security and National Security Agency. The designation
means the university’s curriculum and faculty meet or exceed
national standards to teach information-assurance security.
[Text from file received from
University of Texas at San Antonio]
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