Iowa High Cyber Defense Competition: Students Protect Networks from Threats

It has all the makings of a B-movie plot: A corporate network targeted by hackers and a half dozen high-school students as the company's only defense. Click here for Core!! Yet, teams of students from ten different Iowa high schools faced exactly that scenario during a single night in late May in the High School Cyber Defense Competition. The contest tasked the teenagers with building a network in the three weeks leading up to the competition with only their teachers, and mentoring volunteers from local technology firms, as their guides.

On Friday night, May 19, and into Saturday morning, the students defended the network against a team of Iowa State University students acting as the attackers. "As the hackers came in, you could see (the students') reactions: They were frustrated when they saw the attackers breach their systems and excited when they stopped the attack," said John Carr, a mentor for the team fielded by Valley High School of West Des Moines and senior solutions consultant with Iowa-based technology consulting firm QCI.

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