By Chris Urquia
The world of cybersecurity is a pretty cryptic place – angels battle demons, white hats battle black hats – and here at Peninsula College, the cybersecurity team studies and trains hard to compete head-to-head against professionals at the Pacific Rim Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (PRCCDC).
This year’s competition took place at Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington.
This is the second year in a row that Peninsula’s cyber defense team participated in the competition.
Only eight students are allowed to compete on a team and the Tech club’s coach, Eric Waterkotte, led the students into a two-day battle in cyberspace.
“The competition simulates an enterprise network that undergoes attacks for two whole days during the end of March and the beginning of April,” Cameron Bluthenthal, one of the eight from Peninsula College said.
“Each team begins with the same infrastructure, filled with almost broken systems ready for the taking.
“Blue Teams [college teams] must secure and protect the systems from Red Team, which is basically a room of penetration testers [hackers] from both private and public sectors.
While the Peninsula College cyber security team did not place at the podium – finishing 9 out of 12 teams – returning team members have their sights set for the upcoming year.