RU team competes with top schools at cyber security event
At the CyberSEED Capture the Flag (CTF) challenge, the Radford University Cyber Defense Club took the field as a cyberwarfare unit in a scenario where they breached the computer security systems of a large oil company for information on a rumored oil find.
The conference at the University of Connecticut Oct. 21-22 featured speakers and panel discussions, as well as the competition. Rear Adm. David Simpson, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, gave a talk about the state of national and international cybersecurity and the team networked with computer security students from 38 other universities.
The RU Cyber Defense Club team of Lloyd Jones, Chris Huntington, Bobby Russ and Justin Arnold mimicked a real life "red-team" and started with almost zero knowledge of the systems they hoped to infiltrate.
The Radford University Cyber Defense Club prepares for cyberwarfare at the CyberSEED Capture the Flag (CTF) challenge Oct. 21-22 at the University of Connecticut.
During the first day of the competition, RU was the first team to score points and get on the leaderboard, Jones said.
"We held first place for the first hour or so and managed to stay in the top three for the majority of the first day," he said. "We were pleased to be holding our own against schools that were much larger than us and had graduate students."
On day two, Jones said his team finished strong after a slow start to "power through flag after flag and rise up on the rankings as other teams were losing their steam."
In the CTF event, Brown University placed first, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute finished second, and Florida State third.
"I'm extremely impressed with the performance of our team and am amazed at how much we learned from this competition," Jones said.