NEWS

Have you ever wondered which dinosaur species is the best at cybersecurity? You’ll have the chance to find out at Louisiana Tech University’s Cyber Storm on Friday, May 12.

Dinosaur-themed teams of Computer Science and Cyber Engineering students will showcase their cyber security abilities at the day-long hackfest.

Twelve teams – Pterodactyl, Pachycephalosaur, Brachiosaurus, Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus, Dicraeosaurus, Velociraptor, Ankylosaurus, Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Parasaurolophus, and Psittacosurus – will show off their cyber know-how in a fierce battle to test who can identify security flaws, execute the best attack strategy, and complete the most tasks accurately and quickly.

Administrative and black hat teams will curate and supervise cyber security challenges that the student teams, connected to each other on custom built infrastructures, can tackle while competing against each other. The teams will gain points for how fast and accurately they complete the challenges that come from cryptography, steganography, wireless network access, black box challenges, and taking advantage of security flaws in cyber systems.

“We are excited to have our Cyber Engineering and Computer Science students participate in this event,” Dr. Ankunda Kiremire, Program Chair and Lecturer of Computer Science and Coordinator of the Cyber Storm event, said. “They have been learning and preparing all quarter and it is shaping up to be one of the most competitive Cyber Storm events we have ever had.”

In addition to the team challenges, the public will have the chance to participate in challenges of varying difficulty to see how they would stack up to the teams. These public challenges can take between 15 minutes and an hour to solve, and any members of the public who complete them get to decide which of the 10 student teams to give their points to.

Cyber Storm is free and open to the public in the Integrated Engineering and Science Building (IESB) 108 to check it out.