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USF team wards off cyber attacks to place second
By DAVE GUSSOW
Published April 24, 2006
It doesn't get the attention of winning a national title in basketball, but the members of the Whitehatters Computer Security Club at the University of South Florida are pretty happy with second place.
The group of eight students was runnerup at the first Southeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition last month at Kennesaw State University near Atlanta.
"The kids said it was very stressful but fun," said Jeremy Rasmussen, an adjunct professor who organized the club. "It was just continuous pressure the whole time."
The competition, one of a growing number of such high-tech events among colleges, involves teams fending off various cyber attacks while continuing to operate their Web sites. The team that defends and keeps running best wins.
The Whitehatters' team spent four hours the first day setting up its system and a full 12 hours the second for the competition.
Rasmussen, who teaches in the departments of Computer Science and Engineering and Information Systems and Decision Sciences, was particularly happy about USF's showing because it has no specialty in information security and it competed against teams from schools that do.
While there are no specific plans for the next competition, the team does have its sights set high.
"We have a dream of competing in the one at DEFCON," Rasmussen said, referring to the annual hackers' event in Las Vegas. "That's the cream of the crop."
[Last modified April 24, 2006, 01:40:15]
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