/news-archive/tag/cyber-security-club/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Fri, 09 Feb 2018 14:11:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /news-archive/2018/02/09/ua-little-rock-cybersecurity-competition/ Fri, 09 Feb 2018 14:11:11 +0000 /news/?p=69329 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock takes fourth place in cybersecurity competition]]> A team of computer science majors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock finished fourth out of 21 teams during the cybersecurity competition Jan. 26-28 at Fort Smith.聽 The Cyber Security Club team members include Malik El-Amin, a senior from North Little Rock; Aaron Mays, a sophomore from Scotland; David Stack, a sophomore from Little Rock; and Carter Williams, a freshman from Dover. The team was sponsored by the Department of Computer Science. 鈥淚 personally had a great time and love these competitions not only because the puzzles are fun to break, but the networking that takes place at these events is a great opportunity for us to meet potential employers and industry professionals,鈥� Stack said. 鈥淓veryone is super friendly and willing to teach you new skills if you willing to learn.鈥� The competition featured a 鈥渃apture the flag鈥� challenge, a hacking tournament and information security competition where teams race to solve cyber puzzles to acquire digital flags, usually a predefined file or string of texts. The challenges are divided by category with puzzles of increasing difficulty ranging from networking, coding, cryptography, web application hacking, brainteasers, and real-life immersive geo-located puzzles in the downtown area. 鈥淭he harder the problem, the more points you receive,鈥� Mays said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e required to put multiple things in practice, such as computer forensics, cryptography, steganography, reverse engineering, social engineering, and programming. I learned a lot of new things, one of those being how to crack a Wi-Fi password.鈥� In addition to learning valuable new skills, the team even earned an honorable mention and special trophy for hacking into the Facebook and Gmail accounts the game administrators created for the competition and holding the accounts ransom for extra points. 鈥淭his may seem bad, but the point to these competitions is to utterly defeat anything within the competition鈥檚 scope,鈥� Stack said. 鈥淭he only rules are don鈥檛 hack the other teams and don鈥檛 hack the scoreboard. We got major bonus points for hacking the game administrators.鈥� The Cyber Security Club meets every Friday at 5:30 p.m. in the Engineering and Information Technology Building Room 543. For more information, contact the club鈥檚 advisor, Dr. Mengjun Xie, at mxxie@ualr.edu.]]> /news-archive/2018/02/05/cyber-team/ Mon, 05 Feb 2018 22:36:03 +0000 /news/?p=69262 ... Computer Science students place 4th in cybersecurity competition]]> The competition, held Jan. 26-28, is a cybersecurity event featuring a Capture the Flag (CTF) hacking tournament and various security workshops. Shell is the computer program used for controlling and running programs. Students participated in networking, coding, cryptography, web application hacking, brainteasers, and real-life immersive geo-located puzzles in the downtown area. The team, sponsored by the Department of Computer Science, included David Stack, Malik El-Amin, Aaron Mays, and Carter Williams. They are members of the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Cyber Security Club.]]> /news-archive/2017/03/01/cyber-defense-competition/ Wed, 01 Mar 2017 19:51:20 +0000 /news/?p=66467 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock team advances to regional cyber defense competition]]> Twenty teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico competed during a virtual qualifying round on Feb. 18. 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock and seven other teams advanced to compete in the March 17-19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Coached by Yanyan Li, an integrated computing doctoral student, the team consists of Captain Connor Young, Aaron Mays, Hector Fernandez, Jeffrey Wooldridge, Josh Carlat, Malik El-Amin, Shijun Zhong, and Zachary Long. 鈥淭his was a great achievement for our CCDC team, considering that only two members participated in last year’s competition, and we had as many as six new members join this year,鈥� Li said. 鈥淭hey played as a team helping each other and secured our servers from being attacked.鈥� During the competition, students assume the administrative and protective duties for a commercial network. While the team runs the companies, it must defend its networks against attacks from a professional team of penetration testers, who find security vulnerabilities in web-based applications, networks, and systems. 鈥淲e play the part of a newly hired IT team for a small, web-based company,鈥� Young said. 鈥淪ome example of difficulties we faced include dealing with missing passwords on our computers, writing policies such as a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, and providing services for our company. This last challenge includes maintaining a web page, managing our coworkers鈥� accounts, and providing useful file sharing inside and outside of our company.鈥� In 2016, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock team finished third in the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. In the upper right photo, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Cyber Defense Team includes, from left to right: Back Row:聽Yanyan Li,聽Josh Carlat,聽Connor Young, and Shijun Zhong. Front Row:聽Zachary Long,聽Malik El-Amin,聽Aaron Mays, and Hector Fernandez.聽  ]]> /news-archive/2016/03/23/ualr-takes-third-cyber-defense-competition/ Wed, 23 Mar 2016 14:38:39 +0000 /news/?p=63801 ... 糖心Vlog传媒LR team takes third place in Cyber Defense Competition]]> The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Cyber Security Club recently earned the highest finish ever for an Arkansas university at the . 糖心Vlog传媒LR鈥檚 Cyber Security Club team, comprised of captain Andrew Lewis as well as Blaise Koch, Connor Young, Dylan Hailey, Jeffery Wooldridge, John Henry, Tommy Haycraft, and Yanyan Li, finished third in the March 12-13 competition at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. The team initially competed in a virtual qualifier with 22 other squads and was one of eight that advanced to the regional competition. During the regional event, participants spent two days simulating an information technology department at an imaginary health insurance company called Insuracomm. Each team was assigned a room with six computers and charged with tasks like running the company website, setting up an email server, developing social media policies, and handling information technology requests. However, their assignments got more complicated as professional testers constantly tried to sabotage their efforts. 鈥淲e were asked to keep a bunch of industry services up and running, and that in itself is very difficult,鈥� Koch said. 鈥淧rofessional penetration testers were tasked with bringing our services down. Think of them as legal hackers. They are the ones companies pay to find holes in their security before the bad guys do.鈥� Mengjun Xie, faculty advisor of the Cyber Security Club, said the competition demonstrates to students how their cyber security skills can be used in the real world. 鈥淓verything is online. Data often becomes the most valuable asset for most companies, universities, and all types of organizations,鈥� Xie said. 鈥淥nce the students participate in this competition, they have a very strong motivation to learn. This national competition attracts so much attention.鈥� One of the real-world problems the team had to investigate was the company鈥檚 vulnerability to an attack similar to what happened to Ashley Madison, the online dating website for married people that was hacked in 2015. Since the competition鈥檚 fake insurance company deals with health insurance, the team had to follow strict national laws that protect personal health information. 鈥淓very competition I have gone to you face a challenge in modern-day security,鈥� Lewis said. 鈥淵ou never know what you will get with these competitions. Sometimes we build an entire network and then defend it against hackers. It is always changing. The idea is to learn about modern vulnerability and security issues. Everyone knows what happened at Ashley Madison. One of our assignments was to see if our website was vulnerable to the Ashley Madison attacks.鈥� The College of Engineering and Information Technology and the Department of Computer Science sponsored the Cyber Security Club鈥檚 trip to the competition. Dr. Kenji Yoshigoe, chair of the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Department of Computer Science, noted a team from the university first competed in a regional qualifier merely three years ago. 鈥淪ince then, the team has come a long way and became one of the dominating teams in the Southwest region,鈥� 聽Yoshigoe said. 鈥淥n behalf of the Computer Science Department, I would like to congratulate them on their great accomplishment.” In the upper right photo, pictured in the front row, from left to right, are Mengjun Xie, Andrew Lewis, Blaise Koch, John Henry, and Yanyan Li. Pictured in the back row, from left to right, are Tommy Haycraft, Connor Young, Jeffery聽Wooldridge, and Dylan Hailey.]]>