What is the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition?
The Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition will allow institutions of higher education that have a computer security or information assurance program to allow students to exercise their skills in a realistic situation. This competition will assess the student's depth of understanding and operational competency in managing the challenges that are important to protecting an enterprise's network infrastructure and business information systems. The competition will be held in a controlled environment that can give students an opportunity to apply the theories and skills that they have obtained throughout their coursework, provide a meaningful mechanism for institutions to evaluate their own programs, create a spirit of teamwork, ethical behavior, and communication that is effective within the team and across other teams. This competition will also open a dialog of awareness among the sponsoring organizations, students, and the participating institutions.
This competition will concentrate on the defense of the network not the offense. There will be eight teams that consist of eight students from each of the many western four-year universities and community colleges. Each of the teams will be given identical computer configurations at the start of the competition. The competition will be three days long and the team must ensure the systems supply the specified services while undergoing attacks from the red team. There will also be some periodic injects that they will have to deal with. These injects simulate some of the business activities that IT staff in the real world must deal with.
The winners of the Western Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition will be able to move on to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.
How do I participate?
As long as you meet the criteria below you could participate:
- All members must be active students at the team school.
- The school should offer courses that teach the principles outlined in the CNSS standards.
- The sponsoring school must be located in the West.