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Home ― News ― DSU is Texas bound after winning the North Central Regional CCDC competition

DSU CCDC team becomes Texas Bound

March 10, 2014

For the second year in a row, the cyber defense talents of the Dakota State University CCDC team catapulted them into a landslide victory during the North Central Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) this past weekend in Madison, S.D. The DSU team members consist of eight students; Christopher Paschen, Steve Secker, Andrew Kramer, Cody Welu, William Hofer, Benjamin Cable, Alexander Gartner and Jesse Mendez.

As the winner of the event, the DSU team receives an all-expense paid trip to the National CCDC event, April 25-27, in San Antonio, Texas. There, the DSU team will compete against nine other regional CCDC teams from around the nation.

CCDC is a network security event that provides students with a unique opportunity to gain realistic defensive network security skills that closely simulate the operational challenges they will face as they enter the job market. During the competition, student teams assume administrative and protective duties for an existing “commercial” network. Each team begins the competition with an identical set of hardware and software and is scored on their ability to detect and respond to outside threats, maintain availability of existing services such as mail servers and web servers, respond to business requests such as the addition or removal of additional services, and balance security needs against business needs. A volunteer red team provides the “external threat” all Internet-based services face and allows the teams to match their defensive skills against live opponents.

CCDC events are designed to build a meaningful mechanism by which institutions of higher education may evaluate their programs.  The events also provide an educational venue in which students are able to apply the theory and practical skills they have learned in their course work, and foster a spirit of teamwork, ethical behavior, and effective communication both within and across teams.

The sponsors of the North Central CCDC event include First Bank & Trust, SANS, DSU Center of Excellence in Computer Information Systems, Citi, First Premier Bank/Premier Bankcard, SDN Communications, SPAWAR, Daktronics, Sanford Health and Secure Banking Solutions.

This is the third year DSU has won the competition; they also won in 2009 and 2013. They placed second at the National CCDC event last year in San Antonio.

To view more information about the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (National CCDC) go to http://www.nationalccdc.org/.