Feb. 12, 2020— Northern Kentucky University’s Cyber Defense team is once again victorious at the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. For the third straight year, NKU students won the Kentucky title and while also competing against teams from Ohio and Iowa.

The Collegiate Cyber Defense Competitions (CCDC) presents multiple challenges that students must navigate. As teams work to create and secure their systems, professional “hackers” try different approaches to compromise their network and services. CCDC judges also send a variety of business tasks and upgrade challenges. Each team is scored on their performance with maneuvering each of these elements.

NKU’s Cyber Defense Team is made up of students from the College of Informatics Computer Science Department. Dr. Yi Hu, professor of Computer Science, started NKU’s team in 2009. The team competed online in the JRG Cyber Threat Intelligence Lab, the region's premier cybersecurity learning space.

“I’m delighted our talented students are pursuing their passions in cybersecurity. Each week, they spend their Friday night challenging eachother in our lab,” said Dr. Hu. “NKU is a Center for Excellence of Cyber Defense Education, which is designated by NSA and Department of Homeland Security. With cutting-edge curriculum and state-of-art facilities, NKU students are trained to be next-generation ethical hackers that are capable of defending critical information infrastructures of any organization.”

NKU’s Cyber Defense team will represent Kentucky as part of the 2020 Midwest Regional competition in Chicago on March 13, 2020. For more information on the Cyber Defense team, visit their website.