Cyber Warriors Take First Place at State Competition
February 12, 2015Indiana Tech’s cyber defense Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥, the Cyber Warriors, won the state Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition on Saturday February 7th, competing against universities from around Indiana. The Cyber Warriors now move on to the Midwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), to be held March 27-28 at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills IL. The Midwest Regional will feature universities from Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio and Wisconsin, and will determine the Midwest Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥ that will compete in the National CCDC in April in San Antonio, TX.
Members of Indiana Tech’s state championship Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥ include Turner England (Captain), Michael Contino, Eliott Stidd, Carson White, Matt Kowal, Tyler Schmidtke and Ian Springer. Julie Mansfield, Associate Professor of Computer Sciences, and Bill Copeland, Adjunct Professor of Computer Sciences, serve as faculty advisors for the Cyber Warriors.
Each Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥â€™s goal during the CCDC is to create, manage and protect a network infrastructure. Teams build a mock production business infrastructure and then must defend it from professional hackers who are given the challenge to take down each Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥â€™s system and breach their security. While the Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥s work to fend off the hackers, the competition’s judging staff deploys network enhancement and upgrade challenges to each Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥, judging and scoring each Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥â€™s performance. Additionally, Å®ÓÅÖ±²¥s are required to professionally document their responses to the security threats and discuss the techniques they use to defend against them.