About the Teams

This innovative three-day competition featured cyber defense teams from five colleges in Minnesota and Wisconsin: Alexandria Technical College, Inver Hills Community College, Madison Area Technical College, Minneapolis Community and Technical College, and Minnesota State Community and Technical College (Detroit Lakes).

About the Competition

The event involved 20 hours of competition and required eight-person student teams to operate and defend a simulation e-commerce business against various real-world cyber threats initiated by the "Red Team," which was comprised of security professionals from the regional business community who are experts in cyber security threats.

Teams scored points when they delivered a wide range of network services, conducted e-commerce transactions and identified and countered various threats. The event featured a controlled, competitive environment that:

• Provided a meaningful forum for institutions to evaluate their academic programs.
• Gave students an opportunity to apply the theory and skills they've acquired to date.
• Fostered teamwork, ethical behavior, and effective communication.
• Created dialog among participating institutions, students and sponsoring organizations.

About the Sponsors

It was sponsored by the Center for Strategic Information Technology and Security and several prominent companies: Adventium labs, Black Box Network Services, Cisco Systems, Netspi, and Midwave.