Cyber Defense Club participates in statewide cybersecurity competition

Wayne State University’s Cyber Defense Club competed in the Michigan Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) in February. The tournament included seven schools that sponsor similar organizations training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

“The team made its best effort in many areas, but we came up short in our quest to be the best in the state of Michigan,” said Doug Witten, the club’s faculty advisor. “The students train year-round for this event which challenges the students to keep enterprise-wide systems safe from bad actors.”

The CCDC simulates the challenges facing systems during a cyber storm where attacks come from a team of professional hackers. Participants are scored on how well they thwart incoming incursions to keep applications such as email and online retail shops up and running.

During the event, students faced 30 separate system changes that required knowledge of how to keep the application or systems free from malicious attempts to infiltrate them. Students are required to have advanced understanding in Unix operations, malware attacks, networking, web applications, system logging, incident response skills, database design and management, email applications, and technical writing skills.

At the conclusion of the eight-hour competition, the team narrowly missed earning an invitation to a wild-card round with a chance to reach the next level of competition for the Midwest CCDC championship, with the hopes of ultimately making it to the national competition.

“Bringing a national championship to Wayne State is our goal, and we will try our best in the coming year to improve on this year’s journey,” said Witten.