May 2, 2005
Del Mar College Students Win Second Place in First Regional Cyber Defense Competition
Held at UTSA
Students tested their security skills against a host of cyber adversaries
during virtual exercise
The competition lasted 23 hours over three days. But, for eight Del Mar College
Computer Science and Information Technology students, the challenge was worth
their efforts. The Del Mar team placed second in the first Southwest Regional
Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition that The University of Texas at San Antonio
hosted recently.
The eight students who represented Del Mar College during the competition included
John Dietz, David Frisbey, Abigail (Abby) Gonzalez, Bryan Grant, Collin Jackson,
Sylvia Long, Richard Morris and Sergiy Seryogin. Two students served as alternates
and included Kyle Addison and Dorothy Pallotti.
Overall, 40 students making up five eight-member teams were tested on their
abilities to operate, secure, manage and maintain a business network equipped
with email, Web sites, data files and computer users while under cyber attack.
Unlike traditional “hack and defend” or “capture the flag”
competitions, Del Mar students had to provide computer networking services and
applications access to a “white team” of business professionals while
a “red team” made up of computer security professionals concentrated
on attacking the networks to disrupt the ongoing business processes.
“Del Mar’s team placed first in business processes while placing second
in the competition overall,” says Dr. Larry Lee, chair of the College’s
Computer Science and Information Technology Department. “These results
are significant because the other institution’s teams were made up of graduate
students while Del Mar’s team was essentially freshmen and sophomore students.”
Other institutions that participated during the competition included The University
of Texas at San Antonio, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University
and the University of North Texas.
During the competition, teams secured networks by performing risk assessments,
vulnerability analyses, upgrades and patching of operating systems, network
traffic data analyses, and recognition, recovery and documentation of incidents.
Additionally, students dealt with several business case scenarios, or “injects,”
that simulated changing business requirements and tasks under deadline pressures.
DMC Computer Science faculty member David Abarca, notes, “Because our students
prepared for and learned several lessons during the competition, they are now
prepared to provide an increased level of security for any computer network.
Del Mar College’s team was the only one to complete each of the injects.
In fact, our team completed a one-hour scenario in only five minutes.”
The Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition is the first to
create a realistic environment replicating corporate administration and security.
This year’s participants had the opportunity to pit their skills and knowledge
against those of their peers and the real world challenges that await them.
-DMC-rlr