NEWS

Teams of Louisiana Tech University’s Computer Science and Cyber Engineering students will showcase their ability to both hack into adversarial networks and systems and defend against cyberattacks against their own networks at Cyber Storm 2022: Encryption Gods on Friday, May 13.

Cyber Storm provides students with opportunities to showcase their cyber defense skills in a day-long hackfest. The hackfest pits several teams of students in a fierce battle to test who has the best defensive strategy, who can initiate the least defensible attacks, and who can complete the most tasks accurately and quickly.

Administrative and black hat teams will attempt to breach the student networks as they compete against each other on custom infrastructures built by professors and students. The custom hardware and network infrastructure include opportunities for extra points. Along with attacking their competitors’ networks and defending their own, teams will earn points by completing timed cryptography, steganography, wireless network access, and black box challenges.

“The teams this year have been working hard to master the tools and techniques required to have a successful Cyber Storm event and a successful career in cybersecurity,” Dr. Ankunda Kiremire, program chair and professor of computer science and coordinator of the Cyber Storm event, says. “Because the challenges they’ll face span the breadth of a very wide field, every team member’s experience and strengths are important. We will also be having challenges designed by teams of students who have already participated in Cyber Storm and are familiar with the topics and challenges our students would enjoy.

“For the first time, we shall also have a few challenges open to the public. These public challenges will be of various levels and have different requirements, e.g. some can be solved by a user with enough tenacity and a smartphone, while others will require some field knowledge and a computer. These public challenges can take anywhere from about 15 minutes to an hour to solve and any members of the public who complete them get to decide which of the nine student teams to give their points to.”

Following the 2022 theme of Encryption Gods, the nine teams, named after the Egyptian gods Anubis, Bastet, Geb, Horus, Osiris, Ptah, Seth, Sobek, and Thoth, will vie for the top spot this year. Cyber Storm is free and open to the public. Join us in the Integrated Engineering and Science Building 108 to check it out. For more information, please contact Kiremire.