2008 Woodie Awards
Cyber Defense Team wins third place
Aubrey Fenton
Issue date: 3/12/07 Section: Science & Technology
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The event was held on Eastern Michigan University's campus from Friday February 16th through Sunday February 18th. The competition consisted of seven college teams, including WCC, and cost more than $130,000, said James Lewis, the competition director.
The competition was set up in such a way that college teams, or blue teams, didn't directly compete against one another. Instead, an established team of professional hackers, called the red team, attempted to break into each blue team's network. All blue teams were to build the same business network in the first five hours of the competition. After the five hour mark, the red team was allowed to try and hack into the blue teams' networks.
The competition also had a white team, a team made up of professionals in the cyber defense industry. The white team was at times permitted to make suggestions to the blue teams concerning network security. Along with the white team, there was a gold team. The gold team, like the red and white team, was made up of professionals in the cyber defense industry. The gold team was in charge of scoring the competition.
The event was kicked off by a Meet the Defenders Night, held at EMU's new Student Center on Thursday February 15th. The blue, white, and gold teams sat in on the event, though the red team was not permitted to attend. This prevented mingling between the red and blue teams that may have resulted in an unfair advantage. Along with local and international cyber defense professionals, some cyber defense students also attended in place of their normally scheduled class.
"You couldn't swing a dead cat in here and not hit a geek," said Skip Lawver, the head judge of the competition.
One of the main speakers of the evening included Wanderson Casthilo, a member of an International Alliance for Cyber Defense Education, who also was a judge in the cyber defense competition. Casthilo, a Brazilian national, spoke on the lack of laws against cyber crimes and the lack of cyber police in Brazil. He informed the audience that there are 7,000,000 cyber crimes annually in Brazil, and $200 million in cyber crime damages.
Along with Casthilo, Behzat Yucedal, a police captain for the Turkish National Police, spoke on the increasing demand for cyber police. Yucedal also mentioned the Turkish police's secure online aid to criminal investigation, Polnet. Polnet is independent from the World Wide Web, thus making it a very secure system for the sharing of confidential information.
On the last day of the event, after the awards had been given out and the event had reached its end, the director, Lewis, who is also a teacher at WCC, said the event was a success and that he was proud of WCC's cyber defense team. Even after most students and faculty alike reported only four to six hours of sleep each night, Lewis and others are looking forward to making the competition an annual event.
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