CDA in the News

WISCONSIN RAPIDS, Wis., March 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Cyber Defense Agency, an information security consulting and research company specializing in services for the U.S. government and critical infrastructure sectors, today announced that it was selected to assemble and manage the Red Team during the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) occurring on March 24-26 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. The competition will place eight student teams from a mix of several Midwest community colleges and universities including the University of Illinois, against one Red Team consisting of professionals from the IT security arena.

The competition builds on the experience of the first Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition hosted by the University of Texas at San Antonio in Spring 2005. Unlike many cyber security competitions, this exercise concentrates on defense. The eight student teams are representing a company's network that continually comes under attack by hackers and cyber terrorists. These hackers and cyber terrorists will be represented by the red team, who will launch various attacks on the students' networks to undermine their security and operation.

"Cyber attacks are increasing in complexity and sophistication, so it's essential to support collegiate cyber competitions that will help create the next generation of cyber defenders," said Sami Saydjari, president and founder of Cyber Defense Agency. "Our country's critical infrastructure is in the crosshairs of cyber terrorists bent on crippling it, which is why Cyber Defense Agency is committed to protecting America's most critical assets and working with colleges to help train future cyber defenders of that infrastructure."

Throughout the competition, the eight student teams, who have identical computer configurations, must ensure that the systems supply the specified services while under attack from the red team. In addition, the teams will have to satisfy periodic "injects" that simulate business activities that IT staff must deal with in the real world. The competition will be held at the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science (201 N. Goodwin Ave., Urbana) at the University of Illinois from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. CST.

The winning team will be invited to participate in the first national Collegiate Cyber Defense Exercise, which will be hosted by the University of Texas at San Antonio in April 2006.

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For more information, please go to: http://www.iti.uiuc.edu/events/mwccdx-index.php