Month: April 2012

UW CSE has just won the 2012 National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, repeating 2011’s performance.

Team members Mick Ayzenberg, Henry Baba-Weiss, Ian Finder, Karl Koscher, Landon Meernik, Miles Sackler, Cullen Walsh, and Lars Zornes — coached by Jake Appelbaum and advised by Melody Kadenko — qualified for the National competition by winning the Pacific Rim Regionals last month. Hearty congratulations to these folks, and also to Barbara Endicott-Popovsky of UW’s iSchool for encouraging a UW-wide focus on cybersecurity.

See an excellent UW News article here. See a Seattle Times article previewing the competition here. Wall Street Journal MarketWatch article on the competition here. Seattle Times article on the competition here. Other press, out the wazoo: Sacramento Bee; PR Newswire; Infosec Island; Sys-Con Media; KHQ Spokane; KFVS Eklville; KYTX Tylor Longview; splunk.

The Seattle Times previews the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition:

“Somewhere in Texas right now, 30 hackers known as the Red Team are attacking a computer network called Go Mommy, using every trick to try to bring it to its knees.

“Among the defenders: Eight computer-science students from the University of Washington, working to repel the attack — quite possibly while humming the ‘Angry Birds’ theme song.

“This is the world of college cybersecurity competitions, where a dose of black humor underscores an atmosphere of extreme suspicion, and the hackers dish out clever pop-culture references while trying to break the student networks with a bag of dirty tricks.

“The UW team is one of the best in the country. It’s one of 10 teams competing in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in San Antonio this weekend as the defending champs, having won the competition for the first time last year.”

Read more here.