OSU’s student-led team advances to regionals in cyber defense competition

Monday, February 4, 2013

Information Security Assurance Club (ISAC) students (front row) Steven Haddock, Michael Smith, David Waters, Corey Hadley, (back row) Chase Freeman, Zach Taylor, Clayton Griffith, and Eric Osmus, compete in eight-hour virtual cyber defense competition, advancing them to regional competition in Marc — OSU's Information Security Assurance Club (ISAC) team members, front row, from left, Steven Haddock, Michael Smith, David Waters, Corey Hadley; back row, Chase Freeman, Zach Taylor, Clayton Griffith and Eric Osmus, won the Southwest Region Virtual Cyber Defense Competition.

Updated: March 11, 2013

OSU's ISAC team wins the 2013 Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) Southwest Region Competition. For more information visit http://www.nationalccdc.org/.

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Original article:

Oklahoma State University students competed in the 2013 Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) Southwest Region Qualifiers recently, earning a qualifying berth at the regional competition to be held in San Antonio in March.

The eight-man team of Information Security Assurance Club (ISAC) students Chase Freeman, Clayton Griffith, Steven Haddock, Corey Hadley, Eric Osmus, Michael Smith, Zach Taylor and David Waters competed virtually during an eight-hour qualifying round on the Stillwater campus.

The competition required teams of students to maintain a mock business network of computers while it is being attacked by computer security professionals. “Going completely virtual for the qualification round made us redesign our strategy from the ground up. Also, this year’s regional had twice as many teams competing, raising the stakes even higher,” said Eric Osmus, president of ISAC.

Winning a berth in the qualifier means the OSU ISAC club will send a team to the regional CCDC competition for the fourth consecutive year. This is particularly impressive since the OSU team is entirely student-driven. “As a student-led OSU organization, we utilize our own free time to practice for CCDC,” said Osmus. “I believe it shows the dedication we have, as many other schools have formal classes designed specifically to prepare students for the competition.”

“I’m very proud of our students,” said Jim Burkman, OSU ISAC advisor and clinical assistant professor of MSIS in the Spears School of Business. “They work very hard every year for this competition and took third regionally last year against very strong competition. Employers are taking notice and we recently had several students recruited directly out of the club.”

This year, Behfar Jahanshahi, CEO of Interworks, Inc., provided judges for the virtual competition. Daniel Holm, director of Enterprise Solutions, and Ideen Jahanshahi, network technician, both participated throughout the eight-hour qualifier.

For more information about the club, visit isac.okstate.edu or contact Burkman at jim.burkman@okstate.edu, (405) 744-5142. For more information about the National Cyber Defense Competition, visit nationalccdc.org.