Illinois Tech’s CyberHawks win record-breakin

CHICAGO—April 20, 2022—A crew of students from Illinois Institute of Technology’s cybersecurity student organization CyberHawks won the Nationwide Facilities of Educational Excellence in Cybersecurity Cyber Game titles National Championship this 7 days. After successful the Midwest Regional championship by a landslide with a score of just about double the up coming maximum team, the workforce went on to win the nationwide championship with a document-breaking rating. 

Sixty-five groups from 55 faculties competed in the level of competition overall.

The groups rating factors by both offensive and defensive measures. At nationals, the CyberHawks approached the opposition with a methodical strategy that led to a arrive-from-guiding victory. 

They invested more time early in the opposition generating sturdy defenses. This early trade-off experienced them rated close to fifth spot for most of the level of competition, but it turned the vital to their climb to victory as they ongoing to obtain a regular stream of points even though other teams faltered.  

The CyberHawks were being the to start with staff to ever gain a lot more than 5000 details in the competitors, and they were the initially team in Midwest Regionals record to get the highest attainable selection of factors in the offensive portion.

“This level of competition was primarily concentrated on fantastic teamwork and creating up hands-on functional skills that would be valuable in the actual earth,” claims Sajeel Mehta (M.A.S. ITM 1st Year), who served as workforce leader for the competitors.

“Competitions are an significant component of the CyberHawks pursuits as they deliver our members with the probability to apply their cybersecurity capabilities against specialist penetration testers without having the significant-stakes atmosphere out in the field,” suggests David Arnold (EE ’19, M.S CPE ’19, Ph.D. CPE Prospect), president of CyberHawks.

At nationals, Illinois Tech’s workforce featured engineering and computing students throughout the cybersecurity disciplines, which includes Mehta, Aurélien Agniel (M.A.S. CYBS 1st Calendar year), Mohammed Chisti (CS, M.A.S. CYF 5th Calendar year), My Dinh (CS 5th 12 months), John Ford (CCSE, M.S. CPE 3rd 12 months), Sarah Hugue (M.A.S. CYBS 1st Yr), Ryan Timothy Rishab (M.A.S. CYBS 1st 12 months), Kreetha Sintawee (M.A.S. CYF 1st Calendar year), and Wyatt Stevens (CS 1st Yr).

Agniel, Ford, and Stevens led the team’s defensive measures by configuring network sources and establishing safety inside a digital community. They gained details based mostly on how prolonged their defenses held up versus periodic infiltration attempts by specialists. 

The CyberHawks ended up the only group in the Midwest Regional competitiveness to effectively get every single essential support running as section of the service setup and defense. 

Chisti, Dinh, Hugue, Rishab, Sintawee, and Mehta collaborated on the offensive tactic, earning details by finishing issues that analyzed their cryptography, exploitation, administration, programming, and cybersecurity knowledge.

Stevens been given the CyberHawks Team Management Award at each the countrywide and regional competitions. 

“Illinois Tech is a great spot to research cybersecurity owing to the remarkable school and exposure to various education styles provided by the computer science, electrical and computer engineering, and information and technology administration departments. Students can also get concerned with the Illinois Tech CyberHawks to collaborate with other students on jobs, check out new subject areas, and develop on the foundation provided by the Illinois Tech coursework,” claims Arnold.

The CyberHawks college advisor is Adjunct Faculty and Laboratory Engineer Won-Jae Yi.

The crew has been invited to attend the National Institute for Cyber Training (Wonderful) Conference that will choose put in Atlanta in June 2022.