Hackers converged on Iowa State on Saturday for ISU’s annual Cyber Defense Competition that pitted ISU students against industry professionals in a game of virtual capture the flag.

The CDC was made up of teams of ISU students who worked as defenders of cyber networks and fought malicious attacks from outside users. The situation was aimed to simulate companies that try to allow user traffic through their website while keeping out unwanted visitors.

“It’s very much a hands-on thing.” said John Sedig, senior in computer engineering and leader of Team Password. “It really enhances stuff from the classroom. You have to put a lot of thought and thinking on your feet into it too.”

Each of the student teams (blue teams) had a Windows remote server, a Linux remote server, a mail server and Web server, which they defended from malicious cyber attacks by the red team. The blue teams monitored traffic from “users” who made up the green team, which had access to the site to poke around and assess security and services.

The red team was made up of industry professionals from companies in the Midwest who were called in to hack their information and attempt to gain control of the website and capture information.

Ben Blakely led the red team and plays an active role in the competition as a graduate student. He said he enjoys it because it enhances Iowa State’s reputation by stimulating the culture and interest in cyber defense while giving students hands-on experience.

“I think it generates a lot of interest,” Blakely said. “It’s rewarding to see the blue teams getting excited for this. When they go back to their classes, they’re going to have a really well-grounded approach.”

It took guys like Matt Sullivan two sleepless days of preparation for the event. Sullivan is a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering and was one of the minds behind the hydra of cables, projectors and computer monitors that were necessary to facilitate the competition.

“You have to do everything in a very specific, complicated way so no one accidentally breaks something,” Sullivan said.

They constructed their own miniature Internet for the competition that could carry an amount of traffic equivalent to streaming 15 Netflix movies simultaneously, Sullivan said.

Most students competing had never taken a networking or security course, and Sullivan invited anyone who was interested to participate in coming competitions.

More CDCs will be held at Iowa State throughout the year including a community college and a national competition. The competition is hosted by ISU’s Information Assurance Center in association with ISEAGE and IASG and was held in the Howe Hall atrium.