Davenport University’s Cyber Defense team wins 1st place at Michigan CCDC qualifier on Saturday

Davenport University’s College of Technology hosted the 2013 Michigan Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) Qualifier and Assessment on Friday March 8 and Saturday March 9, 2013 at the W.A. Lettinga Campus in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seven teams were in attendance from the state of Michigan including: Davenport University, Ferris State University, Baker College Clinton Township, Baker College Flint, Baker College Jackson, Eastern Michigan University and Jackson Community College.

Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition is open to teams from two-year and four-year colleges and universities. Each participating college sends a team of students to compete by building mock network infrastructure and defending it from “hackers” who are industry professionals volunteering to assist. The “hackers” are given the challenge to take each team’s production systems offline and breach their security. While the teams work hard to fend off “hackers”, the competition judging staff (also industry professionals) will request deployment of network enhancements or services, upgrades, security updates and inject challenges to the teams to simulate a real business environment. The teams are scored on their ability to install and maintain network services and defend them from the “hackers”.

The Davenport University team placed first and will be competing next at the Midwest CCDC Regionals on March 22nd and 23rd at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, Illinois to compete against the top teams from neighboring states before qualifying to compete at the national level. The states competing at the regional level include Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri and Wisconsin. The top team from the Midwest Regionals will travel to the 2013 National CCDC in San Antonio, Texas on April 19th – April 21st, 2013.

Congratulations to the DU Cyber Security Competitive team led by Team Captain and Cyber Defense Organization (CDO) member Ty Huffman. Additional student CCDC team members (also CDO members) are: Ismail Saif, Justin Montalbano, Viet Luu, Shannon Shovan-Lee, Nhat Nguyen, Louis Creager, Zachary Burkum, Kenny Shipley. Justin Montalbano was also the top scorer on the individual assessment exam used to assess students on their individual security, networking and operating system knowledge. The team was coached by their faculty advisor Mark McKinnon and faculty subject matter consultant Pete Anderson.

For additional information on the Midwest CCDC Regionals, see

For additional information on 2013 National CCDC competition, see

For additional information on Davenport University Cyber Defense Organization, see http://www.davenport.edu/registered-student-organizations/academic/cyber-defense-organization