JACKSON
– A Baker College of Jackson student cyber defense team won the annual Capture
the Flag contest affiliated with two recent Detroit professional information
security (InfoSec) conferences. The team competed against four corporate
information security teams.
The winning team members are Jackson residents Benjamin Carroll, Benjamin Clark
and Jacob Layher. Each was awarded a laptop computer. According to the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics, the 2014 median annual wage for information security
analysts was $88,890. Employment in this field is projected to grow 37 percent
from 2012 to 2022, much faster than the average for all occupations.
The two-day contest was held in affiliation with the back-to-back Detroit
Converge and BSides conferences. The conferences presented approximately 60
guest speakers and workshops. Attendees included technicians, developers and
other professionals, including C-level executives responsible for information
security.
“We are extremely proud of the accomplishments of our Baker College students,
especially considering they were competing against seasoned professionals,”
said David Gomez, D.B.A., dean of business and technology programs at Baker
College of Jackson. “These conferences are excellent opportunities for students
to learn about trends in the fast-paced InfoSec industry and to network with
professionals. They also help the students build confidence in their
skills and identify the type of jobs in which they have an interest.”
Team member Benjamin Carroll explained that the competition was not the
traditional cyber defense Capture the Flag contest in which teams compete to
capture a file held on a hardened system. Teams defended their systems while
searching for any signs of intrusion.
within the InfoSec industry,” he said.
The competition was a bracket-style, single-elimination tournament of
three-person teams. The winning team of each two-hour round advanced. Each
round was increasingly difficult with respect to the variation of servers and
workstations in play and the techniques used by the attackers.
“These conferences gave us an invaluable perspective on the current state of
information security,” Carroll said. “The speakers were excellent in
identifying security concerns and correlating techniques and tools to meet the
needs of businesses. We also observed that the InfoSec professionals who work in
southeast Michigan are a tight-knit community. Many people attended both
conferences, and the high attendance was approximately 200 for the Converge
Conference.
“Our experiences at these conferences will be an advantage to us during
employment interviews and will help us hit the ground running in our first
jobs.”
Another student representing the Jackson campus, Lucas Gorczyca, of Jackson,
attended the conferences, but did not participate in the competition. All four
Baker College students are earning bachelor’s degrees in information technology
and security- cyber defense.
