Competition Information
The competition is designed to test each student team’s ability to secure a networked computer system while maintaining standard business functionality. The scenario involves team members simulating a group of new employees that have been brought in to manage and protect the IT infrastructure at a small to medium sized IT services/reseller. The teams are expected to manage the computer network, keep it operational, and control/prevent any unauthorized access. Each team will be expected to maintain and provide public services: a web site, an email server, a database server, an application server, and a workstation used by simulated sales, marketing, and research staff. Each team will start the competition with a set of identically configured systems.
The objective of the competition is to measure each team’s ability to maintain secure computer network operations in a simulated business environment. This is not just a technical competition, but also one built upon the foundation of business operations. A technical success that impacts the business operation will result in a lower score as will a business success which results in security weaknesses. A detailed business scenario will be distributed along with technical specifications prior to the exercise to allow teams to develop their team and capabilities.
Rules
- All teams are connected to a central router and scoring system.
- Each student team will start the competition with identically configured systems.
- A Red Team will attempt to infiltrate or disrupt each team’s daily operations throughout the competition.
- Team members will not be allowed to communicate written or verbally with the Red team members throughout the competition unless requested by the chief judge.
- All team members will wear badges identifying team affiliation at all times.
- Student team members will not initiate any contact with members of the Red Team during the hours of live competition.
- Student team members will not initiate any contact with other student teams in the competition area during the hours of live competition.
- Student team members will not enter another team’s competition workspace.
- The competition will run over a three day period. (Friday 1pm – 9pm, Saturday 8am – 9pm, and Sunday 8am – 12pm). Registration will occur on Friday between 11:30 – 12:55pm.
Student Team Information
- Each student team will consist of up to eight (8) members. Each team member must be at least a full-time student of the institution the team is representing. No more than two of the members can be graduate students. To qualify as a full-time student, the team member must be enrolled in at least 12 quarter units or 9 semester units during the quarter that the competition is held.
- Each team member may not currently be employed full time in an IT security related position.
- Each team may have one faculty advisor present. The faculty advisor cannot be in the team room with the students during the competition.
- Teams will be given basic details about the network configuration prior the competition.
- Each student team will designate a Team Captain for the duration of the competition and a team liaison to act as the focal contact point between the competition staff and the teams before the competition. The team captain and the team liaison may be the same individual, but both must be members of the student team at the competition.
Scoring
- All teams are connected to a central router and scoring system.
- Scoring will be based on keeping required services up, controlling/preventing un-authorized access, and completing business taskings that will be provided throughout the competition.
- The White Team is responsible for monitoring the network, implementing scenario events, and refereeing. A White Team member along for each team captain will verify service functionality prior to competition scoring. Scores will be maintained by the White Team, but will not be shared until the end of the competition. There will be no running totals provided during the competition.
- Protests by any team will be presented by the Team Captain to the competition officials as soon as possible. The competition Chief Judge will be the final arbitrator for any protest or questions arising before, during, or after the competition.
- Any team action that interrupts the scoring system is exclusively the fault of that team and will result in a lower score. Should any question arise about specific scripts or how they are functioning, the Team Captain should immediately contact the competition officials to address the issue.
- Any team that tampers with or interferes with the scoring or operations of another team’s systems will be disqualified.
- Team captains are encouraged to work with the contest staff to resolve any questions or disputes regarding the rules of the competition or scoring methods before the competition begins.
- No PDAs, memory sticks, CDROMs, electronic media, or other similar electronic devices are allowed in the room during the competition unless provided by competition officials. All cellular calls must be made and received in the designated area. Any violation of these rules will result in disqualification of the team member and point penalties assigned to the appropriate team.
Documents/Packets
Western Regional CCDC Team Packet - Competition information that is important to the blue student teams.
White Team Guidelines - These are the guidelines used by the white team, which acts as the judges and scores teams during the competition.
Red Team Guidelines - These are the guidelines used by the red team, which attempts to hack into the blue teams' networks and computers.
Nagios User Guide - This is a reference for setting up and installing the Nagios scoring engine.
[Files require Adobe Acrobat Reader]
Topography
Download larger version of topology. [Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader]
- Topology is subject to change at the actual competition.
- Student teams will be given identical hardware and software installations to configure and support.
- Student teams will be provided the system architecture and initial set-up prior to the event to permit planning.
- Student teams are not allowed to bring in any additional hardware or software into the competition area which includes team rooms and white team areas.
- Student teams may not connect any outside equipment to the competition network or the competition systems.
- Student teams should not assume any system is properly functioning or secure; they are assuming recently hired administrators and are assuming responsibility for each of their systems.
- Student teams must maintain specific services on the “public” IP addresses assigned to their team – for example if a team’s web service is provided to the “world” on 10.10.10.2, the web service must remain available at that IP address throughout the competition. Moving services from one public IP to another is not permitted.
- Student teams are not permitted to alter the system names or IP addresses of their assigned systems.