Read The Seattle Times article “UW team wins Cyber Defense Competition” (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014746226_uwcyberwin12m.html)

Four years ago, in 2008, under the umbrella of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity (CIAC) at the University of Washington, and with major sponsorship from Microsoft, a collaboration among several departments, schools, campuses and external institutions—academic, government and industry—launched the Pacific Rim Collegiate CyberDefense Competition (PRCCDC), sending a team to compete at Nationals for the first time. Today, four years later, it is with great pleasure that I announce that, for the first time since participating in Nationals, the University of Washington team won the event!!!

UW-CSE students, under the able guidance of Dr. Tadayoshi Kohno, have just taken first place at the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in San Antonio. The team includes:  Maria Pimenova, Alexei Czeskis, Baron Von Oldenburg, Karl Koscher, Mark Jordan, Cullen Walsh, Ian Finder, Conrad Meyer.

HISTORY

This entire effort started in 2004 as a classroom exercise in an information assurance class (instructor Dr. Barbara Endicott-Popovsky), part of the Information School Master of Science in Information Management, also offered as a certificate through Professional and Continuing Education. It gave students visceral experience defending a network under cyber attack.

What started as a one-day classroom event, staged by West Point and held at Fort Lewis in their state-of-the-art Battle Command Training Center, over time grew to include other departments and schools. Under the leadership of the CIAC and with $80k in initial sponsorship from Microsoft, a regional level competition–the PRCCDC–was born, moving from Ft. Lewis to the Microsoft campus where the competition was hosted for the first two years. http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=27982

For the last two years the competition rotated venue to Highline Community College.

GOING FORWARD

We can proudly claim an historic breakthrough with this year’s win! In prior years Nationals belonged to the East Coast, Texas and California. Today, University of Washington has put our Northwest region on the map; the PRCCDC has truly taken off!

Our team of organizers and volunteers have worked steadily over the past 4 years to improve the quality of the event and to increase its educational value. The hard work of everyone involved has truly paid off today. It is time in the aftermath of this tremendous win for the University of Washington, to consider where we go from here. The UW-CSE team’s win raises the bar on this event elevating it to another level. We want to continue to maintain our standing and this success for years to come!

While this is a tremendous day for the University of Washington and the UW-CSE team, it must be noted that this entire event involves all 3 campuses and several different schools, many external universities and colleges, as well as collaborators from government and industry. There are many, many (over 100) volunteers who make this regional event possible and who contributed to today’s win. The following captures the highlights of those contributions. If for some reason I have neglected to mention any individuals or institutions, please accept my apologies in advance.

SPECIAL THANK YOU’s

A special thank you to several outstanding groups of volunteers who have tirelessly contributed to the steady improvement and quality of our regional event:

• Agora: Led by University of Washington CISO, Kirk Bailey, has contributed numerous volunteers and sponsors who have helped this event grow.
• City University Seattle: Dr. Erik Fretheim, formally faculty at West Point, who has provided continuity to the original capture-the-flag exercises that have evolved into this series of regional and national competitions.
• DeVry University: Asst. Professor Bob Bunge for his leadership in designing the competition infrastructure, and for his student team who did an outstanding job building it this year.
• Ft. Lewis/McChord: Rick Davidson and team for year after year  providing training center expertise to wire up competition networks the day before. (We couldn’t run the competition without them!)
• Highline Community College: Amelia Phillips, Department Chair, for her consistent leadership and willingness to provide whatever support is necessary to run the competition each year, including providing excellent lab and facilities during Spring break to host the event.
• Idaho State University: NIATEC White Team of Judges who devise the injects that pace the competition each year. Dr. Corey Schou NIATEC Faculty sponsor; Vinnie Nestler PhD candidate responsible for pedagogical impact given much credit for this year’s win, Tyler Labrum and Nikki Howard team captains (2011 and 2012, respectively).
• PNNL: Dr. Deb Frincke, CIAC collaborating partner through I4 who has been exploring ways and methods for using the competition platform as a foundation for cyberwarrior research initiatives.
• SPAWAR and Boeing: For the tremendous effort this year leading the Red (Attack) Team that kept student competitors on their toes, contributing to the preparedness of this year’s winning team! Especially, Mark Bienz, Jeffrey Bullock, Paul Intrarakha, Jeffrey Scaparra
• University of Washington Bothell: Michael Stiber, Chair of CS who sent a team to shadow this year’s competition in order to enter next year. Also a special mention to Lucas Reber who is a veteran of the competition since its inception when he was a student in the MSIM information assurance certificate.
• University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering: Hank Levy, Professor and Department Chair, for his support of the Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity and all of it activities through the years;  Dr. Kohno and his team who have consistently won regionals each year, this year, for the first time, taking first at Nationals! A special thanks to Ed Lazowska, Distinguished Bill & Melinda Gates Chair, for his continued support promoting this competition and strengthening relationships among industry, the academy and the community.
• University of Washington Information School: Dean Harry Bruce for his leadership and continued support every year of the competition; Michelle Norris and her team for logistics support, publicity, registration, etc. –David Shepard, PR,  Daisy Fry graphics design; Mary Clark and her team for grant/contract assistance; Jan Boyd  for her GA crew, especially Rebecca Szper who made the event run smoothly all weekend.
• University of Washington Tacoma: Orlando Baiocchi for his leadership and support of the competition, variously providing testing facilities, bandwidth, training prior to the competition and Don McLane, faculty, who can be counted on to solve any network/competition problems that inevitably arise.
• Whatcom Community College: Corrine Sande, faculty, for her consistent support and leadership representing our region at nationals and in previous years designing, testing and implementing the competition platform.

A special thank you goes to the following 4-Year Institutions who have provided both volunteer support, and competitive teams:

City University of Seattle

DeVry University

Eastern Washington University

Idaho State University

Lewis and Clark

University of Alaska Fairbanks

University of Hawaii Manoa

University of Idaho

University of Washington – Seattle Informatics

University of Washington – Seattle CSE

University of Washington – Bothell

University of Washington – Tacoma

University of Wellington, New Zealand

Western Washington University

Community Colleges:

Highline Community College

Whatcom County Community College

A very special thanks to this year’s generous sponsors. I know you join us in taking pride at being part of this region’s success this year!:

Platinum Sponsors:

Boeing:

Special appreciation to Larry Halford and his team for their continued support and for Allen Greenberg and Jim Farricker.

Microsoft

Special appreciation to Kim Hargraves for her initial investment in the competition; Kevin Sullivan for his continued support and for Ilanko Subramaniam.

Silver Sponsors:

CIA

DeLoitte

IOActive

An additional heartfelt thank you to our sponsors through the years who have contributed to making the PRCCDC and today’s win a possibility:

Black Hat

Boeing

CIA

CIAC

Cisco

DHS/National CCDC

Deloitte

Ft.Lewis/BCTC

Honeynet Project

Internap

IOActive

iSchool

ISSA

Microsoft

PNNL

SPAWAR

UWIT

West Point

Further thanks to our army of volunteers who include alumni of prior event

Dr. Barbara Endicott-Popovsky
Director, Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity

Academic Director, Master of Infrastructure Planning and Management

University of Washington

You can read more about the winning UW-CSE team, and their trip to Nationals here:

UW cyber team plays defense on a national level [Seattle Times, 04/08/2011]

HISTORY

This effort actually began in 2004 as a classroom exercise incorporated into the MSIM – IMT551-553 information assurance series. I like to incorporate active learning into the classroom through simulations, exercises, real world industry projects, and my research. The cyber defense exercise gave students visceral experience defending a network under cyber attack.

We started with a one-day event for our iSchool students, staged by West Point and held at Fort Lewis in their state-of-the-art Battle Command Training Center. Over time, as others heard about it and asked to participate, it grew to include other departments and schools. Four years ago, with $80k in sponsorship from Microsoft, we moved from Ft. Lewis to the Microsoft campus to formally launch a regional level competition that feeds the National event held in San Antonio. http://www.uwtv.org/programs/displayevent.aspx?rID=27982 With the economic slump, we moved the event two years ago to a less expensive venue at a local community college using their labs during spring break.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

After four years, we have developed this activity to include the following regional universities, community colleges and UW departments:

4-Year Institutions

City University Seattle
DeVry University
Eastern Washington University
Idaho State University
Lewis and Clark
University of Idaho
University of Washington – Seattle Informatics
University of Washington – Seattle CSE
University of Washington – Bothell
University of Washington – Tacoma
Western Washington University

Community Colleges:

Highline Community College
Whatcom County Community College

SPONSORSHIP/EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

We have received sponsorship/support from the following sources: Black Hat, Boeing, CIA, CIAC, Cisco, DHS/National CCDC, Deloitte, IOActive, iSchool
Microsoft, SPAWAR, UWIT. Across the country, these regional events have become meccas for hiring, as sponsors use the competition as a way of identifying priority hires. Osman Sukkratty, our informatics student, is an example. As a result of this event he received an internship from Boeing and now plans to go to work for them.

For more information about PRCCDC 2011, see here.

Location:: University of Washington, Kane Hall, Room 110

Registration: 8:00am to 9:00am

Event program: 9:00am to 4:30pm

For additional Information click here

Students: Register now for your chance at winning one of our many
competitions!

About the competitions:

• CTF- Application Security Challenge: detect application security vulnerabilities.
• Embedded Systems Challenge: analyze an infected hardware platform.
• Cyber Forensics Challenge: solve a fictional murder mystery.
• Research Award: present original research.
• Security Awareness Poster Competition: design a visually-compelling message regarding a topic in the area of information security.
• Quiz Tournament: go head-to-head against other teams for questions from digital security topics.

Prizes:

• First – $500
• Second – $250
• Third – $100

Visit the website for complete details http://www.poly.edu/csaw

Judges:

Capture the Flag: Application Security Challenges
Dino Dai Zovi , Stephen Ridley , Dean De Beer, Erik Cabetas .

Research Award

• Grady Summers, Chief Information Security Officer, General Electric
• Sanjay Macwan, Assistant Vice President, AT&T Chief Security Office

About the ISIS lab:

NYU-Poly’s ISIS lab is an NSF-funded lab and a NSA designated Center of
Excellence that provides focus for multidisciplinary research and
hands-on education in emerging areas of information security. Current
research areas include computer and network security, digital forensics,
hardware for secure systems, digital watermarking and steganography.

For more information about ISIS and the scholarship programs we have
available, please visit our ISIS website http://isis.poly.edu/

For more information on the CSAW events visit our website. http://www.poly.edu/csaw