CIAS Hosts Second Annual National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition: The Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS), located at The University of Texas at San Antonio, will host the 2nd Annual National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) April 13-15, 2007. The CCDC program consists of competitions at the state and regional levels with the winner from each regional being invited to compete in the championship in San Antonio, Texas. Participants consist of teams of full-time college students from across the country who must apply their information assurance and information technology skills to maintain a secure, operational network.

CCDC competitions focus on business operations and incorporate the operational aspects of managing and protecting an existing network infrastructure. Teams assume control of an "operational" network from a fictitious business complete with e-mail, Web sites, data files, users, and network traffic. Each team is required to correct problems on their network, perform typical business tasks, and defend their networks from hostile activity generated by a live red team. Teams are scored on their performance in each of these areas and the team with the highest score is crowned the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Champion.

Over the past three years the CCDC program has grown from five participating schools in 2005 to 45 schools in 2007, and will add three new regional competitions and an anticipated 30 additional schools in 2008. The 2007 national competition features the nation's top collegiate cyber defense teams representing Texas A&M University, University of Louisville, Millersville University of Pennsylvania and Indiana Tech. The participants advanced to the National CCDC after winning their respective regional competitions in the Southwest, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast Regions.

(Via GT: Security and Privacy.)