2008 Woodie Awards
ISU participates in Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition
Paige Nevius
Issue date: 3/5/07 Section: Features
College students all over Illinois compete in various competitions every weekend, traveling, practicing and honing their craft.
While everyone is aware of sports competitions, speech competitions and band competitions, not all are familiar with computer-securing competitions.
Although this way of competing is rather unconventional, the competitions have only been going on for three years, which could also contribute to the reason it often goes unnoticed.
"Three years ago we got together in San Antonio to design a competition that would allow students to compete in an information security type of environment," Erich Spengler, director for Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance, said.
The competitions include different blue teams or teams of students from their respective universities competing against a team of professional "hackers," called the red team, to make systems secure.
"A red team is a team that's designed to try and penetrate the network and cause stresses for the students," Spengler said.
Spengler said during competitions, the teams have several different areas of work.
"One is related to managing business networks, which means providing services to customers," he said. "In [another area] the students are required to keep the environment running," Spengler said.
During a three-day event from Feb. 23 through 25, this is exactly what a few Illinois colleges, including ISU, did.
Students from Southern Illinois University, DePaul University, a second SIU team, Moraine Valley and ISU gathered at SIU to compete for the regional competition coming up the weekend of March 16 through 18.
"The competition went from Friday at noon until 9 p.m. and then 8 a.m. until 10 at night on Saturday," Spengler said.
"The teams start with the same software and hardware," Belle Woodward, SIU facility adviser for the competition, said.
When dealing with computer services, it is essential for each competing team to have the exact same tools to keep their servers up.
While everyone is aware of sports competitions, speech competitions and band competitions, not all are familiar with computer-securing competitions.
Although this way of competing is rather unconventional, the competitions have only been going on for three years, which could also contribute to the reason it often goes unnoticed.
"Three years ago we got together in San Antonio to design a competition that would allow students to compete in an information security type of environment," Erich Spengler, director for Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance, said.
The competitions include different blue teams or teams of students from their respective universities competing against a team of professional "hackers," called the red team, to make systems secure.
"A red team is a team that's designed to try and penetrate the network and cause stresses for the students," Spengler said.
Spengler said during competitions, the teams have several different areas of work.
"One is related to managing business networks, which means providing services to customers," he said. "In [another area] the students are required to keep the environment running," Spengler said.
During a three-day event from Feb. 23 through 25, this is exactly what a few Illinois colleges, including ISU, did.
Students from Southern Illinois University, DePaul University, a second SIU team, Moraine Valley and ISU gathered at SIU to compete for the regional competition coming up the weekend of March 16 through 18.
"The competition went from Friday at noon until 9 p.m. and then 8 a.m. until 10 at night on Saturday," Spengler said.
"The teams start with the same software and hardware," Belle Woodward, SIU facility adviser for the competition, said.
When dealing with computer services, it is essential for each competing team to have the exact same tools to keep their servers up.
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