Cadet cyber team notches another win

  • Published
  • U.S. Air Force Academy Public Affairs
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --  The Air Force Academy Cyber Competition Team won the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, March 1-2 at Regis University in Greenwood Village, Colo.
 
Teams from the Air Force Academy, BYU, the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, Fort Hays State, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, the University of New Mexico, and Regis University competed.

During the competition, students and cadets played the roles of system administrators a fictitious web provider. In the scenario, the teams took over and secured a network they had never seen.

"I enjoyed CCDC because it made us see how hard it is to protect against the cyber attacks you read about in the news," said Cadet 2nd Class Bill Parks.

While trying to learn and use their new network, cadets had to manage calls from angry customers, perform a computer forensics exercise and respond to a slew of requests from management.

"I think the competition went really well; we worked well together to press through some difficult situations while keeping calm and collected," said Cadet 3rd Class Josh Hayden. "We have a great team pushing me daily to be better."

Further complicating matters for the cadet team were the competition's professional red teams, tasked to constantly attack the networks.

"The most valuable skill this competition taught us was the ability to communicate and prioritize as a group under constant stress," said Cadet 1st Class Keane Lucas.

Cadet 1st Class Ryan Zacher of Parker, Colo.,served as the Academy's team captain. Cadets 1st Class Chase King of New Holland, PA, Keane Lucas and Chad Speer of Wasilla, Alaska, Cadets 2nd Class Kevin Cooper of Greenville, N.C., Bill Parks of Santa Jose, Calif., and Cadets 3rd Class Josh Hayden of Roswell, Ga., and Justin Niquette of Pinellas Park, Fla., also represented the Air Force Academy. Dr. Martin Carlisle, director of the Academy Center for Cyberspace Research, coaches the team with assistance from Maj. David Caswell and Maj. Michael Chiaramonte.

"We had only two returning cadets from last year's team. The cadets' win reflects tremendous dedication to not only preparing for this competition, but also preparing to lead our nation's defense in cyber," said Dr. Carlisle.

Having won the regional, the Air Force team will now advance to the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition for the fourth year in a row. Nationals will be April 25-27 in San Antonio, Texas.

This was the team's twelfth competition during this academic year. The team also went to nationals in the NYU Poly Cyber Security Awareness Week Capture the Flag competition, and was the top team in the western hemisphere in the University of California at Santa Barbara's International Capture the Flag competition.

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