Cyber Defense Team finishes in third at NECCDC competition

Competing against nine other colleges, the Alfred State Cyber Defense Team recently placed third at the Northeast Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (NECCDC), hosted by Syracuse University from March 20-22.

The 10 teams competing at the NECCDC this year were from Alfred State, Champlain College, Northeastern University, Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), the State University of New York (SUNY) Polytechnic Institute, Syracuse University, SUNY Buffalo, University of Maine, University of Massachusetts’ Boston campus, and University of New Hampshire. Alfred State finished behind only RIT and Northeastern University.

“Alfred State has been competing at the NECCDC since 2010 and was the only team that did not have graduate students, so a third-place finish is a remarkable accomplishment and further proves that Alfred State offers a top-tier cybersecurity and information technology education program,” said Coach Jim Boardman, assistant professor and chair of the Computer and Information Technology Department.

The Northeast region is one of 10 nationwide that hosts a collegiate cyber defense competition. According to the NECCDC competitors’ handbook, the event focused on the more operational task of assuming administrative and protective duties for an existing “enterprise” network. Teams were scored based on their ability to detect and respond to outside threats, maintain availability of existing services such as mail servers and web servers, respond to business requests such as the addition or removal of additional services, and balance security needs against business needs.

This year’s NECCDC winning team advanced to the national competition in April in San Antonio, TX. Regardless of how each team finishes, Boardman said, this is an outstanding and unique opportunity for students to hone their cybersecurity skills.

“It is truly a privilege just to be invited to compete,” he said. “In order to participate at the NECCDC, teams had to qualify at a pre-qualifier competition on Jan. 30. Fourteen teams competed at the pre-qualifier and only 10 were invited to compete at Syracuse University.”

Alfred State’s cyber defense squad consisted of Jeff Andolora, of Caledonia; Christopher Bishop, of North Tonawanda; Anthony Dahmane, of Bath; Matthew Gandron, of Saratoga Springs; Graig Gratton, of Buffalo; Conor Mitchell, of Binghamton; Dion Pezzimenti Jr., of Andover; Edward Swackhamer, of Brewerton; and Joseph Tomapat, of Middletown. All of the students are network administration majors, except for Andolora and Bishop, who are both majoring in applications software development.

Mitchell said the Alfred State team is proud to have competed.

“The NECCDC is a wonderful opportunity for students to gain relevant experience and learn to perform under pressure,” he said.

In addition to providing students with a fantastic opportunity to improve their cybersecurity skills, the NECCDC also allows prospective employers an opportunity to evaluate and interview student job candidates. Sponsors for this year’s competition included Amazon, Cisco, Akamai, Department of Homeland Security, Raytheon, Ford, Northwestern Mutual, Center for Systems Security and Information Assurance, SIG, EMC Corporation, Palantir, Goldman Sachs, Space and Naval War Systems Command, Veracode, Hewlett-Packard, and 780th Military Intelligence Brigade.

National information can be found at http://www.nationalccdc.org/ and regional information can be found at http://neccdc.net/wordpress/.

In photo above: First row, from left to right are Christopher Bishop and Matthew Gandron. Second row, from left, are Craig Gratton, Joseph Tomapat, Edward Swackhamer, and Dion Pezzimenti Jr. Third row, from left, are Conor Mitchell, Anthony Dahmane, Assistant professor and Computer and Information Technology Department Chair Jim Boardman, and Jeff Andolora.